TERTULIAN - THE FIVE BOOKS AGAINST MARCION - BOOK IV

WHICH TERTULLIAN PURSUES HIS ARGUMENT. JESUS IS THE
CHRIST OF THE CREATOR. HE DERIVES HIS PROOFS FROM ST.
LUKE'S GOSPEL; THAT BEING THE ONLY HISTORICAL PORTION
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT PARTIALLY ACCEPTED BY MARCION.
THIS BOOK MAY ALSO BE REGARDED AS A COMMENTARY ON ST.
LUKE. IT GIVES REMARKABLE PROOF OF TERTULLIAN'S
GRASP OF SCRIPTURE, AND PROVES THAT "THE OLD TESTAMENT
IS NOT CONTRARY TO THE NEW." IT ALSO ABOUNDS IN
STRIKING EXPOSITIONS OF SCRIPTURAL PASSAGES, EMBRACING
PROFOUND VIEWS OF REVELATION, IN CONNECTION WITH THE
NATURE OF MAN.

CHAP. I.--EXAMINATION OF THE ANTITHESES OF MARCION,
BRINGING THEM TO THE TEST OF MARCION'S OWN GOSPEL.
CERTAIN TRUE ANTITHESES IN THE DISPENSATIONS OF THE
OLD AND THE NEW TESTAMENTS.THESE VARIATIONS QUITE
COMPATIBLE WITH ONE AND THE SAME GOD, WHO ORDERED THEM.

EVERY opinion and the whole scheme(2) of the impious
and sacrilegious Marcion we now bring to the test(3)
of that very Gospel which, by his process of interpolation,
he has made his own. To encourage a belief of this
Gospel he has actually(4) devised for it a sort of
dower,(5) in a work composed of contrary statements
set in opposition, thence entitled Antitheses, and
compiled with a view to such a severance of the law
from the gospel as should divide the Deity into two,
nay, diverse, gods--one for each Instrument, or Testament(6)
as it is more usual to call it; that by such means
he might also patronize(7) belief in "the Gospel
according to the Antitheses." These, however,
I would have attacked in special combat, hand to hand;
that is to say, I would have encountered singly the
several devices Of the Pontic heretic, if it were not
much more convenient to refute them in and with that
very gospel to which they contribute their support.
Although it is so easy to meet them at once with a
peremptory demurrer,(8) yet, in order that I may both
make them admissible in argument, and account them
valid expressions of opinion, and even contend that
they make for our side, that so there may be all the
redder shame for the blindness of their author, we
have now drawn out some antitheses of our own in opposition
to Marcion. And indeed(9) I do allow that one order
did run its course in the old dispensation under the
Creator,(10) and that another is on its way in the
new under Christ. I do not deny that there is a difference
in the language of their documents, in their precepts
of virtue, and in their teachings of the law; but yet
all this diversity is consistent with one and the same
God, even Him by whom it was arranged and also foretold.
Long ago(1) did Isaiah declare that "out of Sion
should go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from
Jerusalem"(2)--some other law, that is, and another
word. In short, says he, "He shall judge among
the nations, and shall rebuke many people;"(3)
meaning not those of the Jewish people only, but of
the nations which are judged by the new law of the
gospel and the new word of the apostles, and are amongst
themselves rebuked of their old error as soon as they
have believed. And as the result of this, "they
beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears(which
are a kind of hunting instruments) into pruning-hooks;"(4)
that is to say, minds, which once were fierce and cruel,
are changed by them into good dispositions productive
of good fruit. And again: "Hearken unto me, hearken
unto me, my people, and ye kings, give ear unto me;
for a law shall proceed from me,and my judgment for
a light to the nations;"(5) wherefore He had determined
and decreed that the nations also were to be enlightened
by the law and the word of the gospel. This will be
that law which (according to David also) is unblameable,
because "perfect, converting the soul"(6)
from idols unto God. This likewise will be the word
concerning which the same Isaiah says, "For the
Lord will make a decisive word in the land."(7)
Because the New Testament is compendiously short,(8)
and freed from the minute and perplexing(9) burdens
of the law. But why enlarge, when the Creator by the
same prophet foretells the renovation more manifestly
and clearly than the light itself?

"Remember not the former things, neither consider
the things of old" (the old things have passed
away, and new things are arising). "Behold, I
will do new things, which shall now spring forth."(10)
So by Jeremiah: "Break up for yourselves new pastures,(11)
and sow not among thorns, and circumcise yourselves
in the foreskin of your heart."(12) And in another
passage: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord,
that I will make a new covenant with the house of Jacob,
and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant
that I made with their fathers in the day when I arrested
their dispensation, in order to bring them out of the
land of Egypt."(13) He thus shows that the ancient
covenant is temporary only, when He indicates its change;
also when He promises that it shall be followed by
an eternal one. For by Isaiah He says: "Hear me,
and ye shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant
with you," adding "the sure mercies of David,"(14)
in order that He might show that that covenant was
to run its course in Christ. That He was of the family
of David, according to the genealogy of Mary,(15) He
declared in a figurative way even by the rod which
was to proceed out of the stem of Jesse.(16) Forasmuch
then as he said, that from the Creator there would
come other laws, and other words, and new dispensations
of covenants, indicating also that the very sacrifices
were to receive higher offices, and that amongst all
nations, by Malachi when he says: "I have no pleasure
in you, saith the Lord, neither will I accept your
sacrifices at your hands. For from the rising of the
sun, even unto the going down of the same, my name
shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place
a sacrifice is offered unto my name, even a pure offering"(17)--meaning
simple prayer from a pure conscience,--it is of necessity
that every change which comes as the result of innovation,
introduces a diversity in those things of which the
change is made, from which diversity arises also a
contrariety. For as there is nothing, after it has
undergone a change, which does not become different,
so there is nothing different which is not contrary.(18)
Of that very thing, therefore, there will be predicated
a contrariety in consequence of its diversity, to which
there accrued a change of condition after an innovation.
He who brought about the change, the same instituted
the diversity also; He who foretold the innovation,
the same announced beforehand the contrariety likewise.
Why, in your interpretation, do you impute a difference
in the state of things to a difference of powers? Why
do you wrest to the Creator's prejudice those examples
from which you draw your antitheses, when you may recognise
them all in His sensations and affections? "I
will wound," He says, "and I will heal;"
"I will kill," He says again, "and I
will make alive"(19)--even

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the same "who createth evil and maketh peace;"(1)
from which you are used even to censure Him with the
imputation of fickleness and inconstancy, as if He
forbade what He commanded, and commanded what He forbade.
Why, then, have you not reckoned up the Antitheses
also which occur in the natural works of the Creator,
who is for ever contrary to Himself? You have not been
able, unless I am misinformed, to recognise the fact,(2)
that the world, at all events,(3) even amongst your
people of Pontus, is made up of a diversity of elements
which are hostile to one another.(4) It was therefore
your bounden duty first to have determined that the
god of the light was one being, and the god of darkness
was another, in such wise that you might have been
able to have distinctly asserted one of them to be
the god of the law and the other the god of the gospel.
It is, however, the settled conviction already(5) of
my mind from manifest proofs, that, as His works and
plans(6) exist in the way of Antitheses, so also by
the same rule exist the mysteries of His religion.(7)

CHAP. II.--ST. LUKE'S GOSPEL, SELECTED BY MARCION AS
HIS AUTHORITY, AND MUTILATED BY HIM. THE OTHER GOSPELS
EQUALLY AUTHORITATIVE. MARCION'S TERMS OF DISCUSSION,
HOWEVER, ACCEPTED, AND GRAPPLED WITH ON THE FOOTING
OF ST. LUKE'S GOSPEL ALONE.

You have now our answer to the Antitheses compendiously
indicated by us.(8) I pass on to give a proof of the
Gospel(9)--not, to be sure, of Jewry, but of Pontus--having
become meanwhile(10) adulterated; and this shall indicate(11)
the order by which we proceed. We lay it down as our
first position, that the evangelical Testament(12)
has apostles for its authors,(13) to whom was assigned
by the Lord Himself this office of publishing the gospel.
Since, however, there are apostolic(14) men also,(15)
they are yet not alone, but appear with apostles and
after apostles; because the

preaching of disciples might be open to the suspicion
of an affectation of glory, if there did not accompany
it(16) the authority of the masters, which means that
of Christ,(17) for it was that which made the apostles
their masters. Of the apostles, therefore, John and
Matthew first instil(18) faith into us; whilst of apostolic
men, Luke and Mark renew it afterwards.(19) These all
start with the same principles of the faith,(20) so
far as relates to the one only God the Creator and
His Christ, how that He was born of the Virgin, and
came to fulfil(21) the law and the prophets. Never
mind(22) if there does occur some variation in the
order of their narratives, provided that there be agreement
in the essential matter(23) of the faith, in which
there is disagreement with Marcion. Marcion, on the
other hand, you must know,(24) ascribes no author to
his Gospel, as if it could not be allowed him to affix
a title to that from which it was no crime (in his
eyes) to subvert(25) the very body. And here I might
now make a stand, and contend that a work ought not
to be recognised, which holds not its head erect, which
exhibits no consistency, which gives no promise of
credibility from the fulness of its title and the just
profession of its author. But we prefer to join issue(26)
on every point; nor shall we leave unnoticed(27) what
may fairly be understood to be on our side.(28) Now,
of the authors whom we possess, Marcion seems to have
singled out Luke(29) for his mutilating process.(30)
Luke, however, was not an apostle, but only an apostolic
man; not a master, but a disciple, and so inferior
to a master--at least as far subsequent to(31) him
as the apostle whom he followed (and that, no doubt,
was Paul(32)) was subsequent to the others; so that,
had Marcion even published his Gospel in the name of
St. Paul himself, the single authority of the document,(33)
destitute of all support from preceding authorities,
would not be a sufficient basis for our faith. There
would be still wanted that Gospel which St. Paul found
in existence, to which he yielded

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his belief, and with which he so earnestly wished his
own to agree, that he actually on that account went
up to Jerusalem to know and consult the apostles, "lest
he should run, or had been running in vain;"(1)
in other words, that the faith which he had learned,
and the gospel which he was preaching, might be in
accordance with theirs. Then, at last, having conferred
with the (primitive) authors, and having agreed with
them touching the rule of faith, they joined their
hands in fellowship, and divided their labours thenceforth
in the office of preaching the gospel, so that they
were to go to the Jews, and St. Paul to the Jews and
the Gentiles. Inasmuch, therefore, as the enlightener
of St. Luke himself desired the authority of his predecessors
for both his own faith and preaching, how much more
may not I require for Luke's Gospel that which was
necessary for the Gospel of his master.(2)

CHAP. III.(3)--MARCION INSINUATED THE UNTRUSTWORTHINESS
OF CERTAIN APOSTLES WHOM ST. PAUL REBUKED. THE REBUKE
SHOWS THAT IT CANNOT BE REGARDED AS DEROGATING FROM
THEIR AUTHORITY. THE APOSTOLIC GOSPELS PERFECTLY AUTHENTIC.

In the scheme of Marcion, on the contrary,(4) the
mystery(5) of the Christian religion begins from the
discipleship of Luke. Since, however, it was on its
course previous to that point, it must have had(6)
its own authentic materials,(7) by means of which
it found its own way down to St. Luke; and by the assistance
of the testimony which it bore, Luke himself becomes
admissible. Well, but(8) Marcion, finding the Epistle
of Paul to the Galatians (wherein he rebukes even apostles(9))
for "not walking uprightly according to the truth
of the gospel,"(10) as well as accuses certain
false apostles of perverting the gospel of Christ),
labours very hard to destroy the character(11) of those
Gospels which are published as genuine(12) and under
the name of apostles, in order, forsooth, to secure
for his own Gospel the credit which he takes away from
them. But then, even if he censures

Peter and John and James, who were thought to be pillars,
it is for a manifest reason. They seemed to be changing
their company(13) from respect of persons. And yet
as Paul himself "became all things to all men,"(14)
that he might gain all, it was possible that Peter
also might have betaken himself to the same plan of
practising somewhat different from what he taught.
And, in like manner, if false apostles also crept in,
their character too showed itself in their insisting
upon circumcision and the Jewish ceremonies. So that
it was not on account of their preaching, but of their
conversation, that they were marked by St. Paul, who
would with equal impartiality have marked them with
censure, if they had erred at all with respect to God
the Creator or His Christ. Each several case will therefore
have to be distinguished. When Marcion complains that
apostles are suspected (for their prevarication and
dissimulation) of having even depraved the gospel,
he thereby accuses Christ, by accusing those whom Christ
chose. If, then, the apostles, who are censured simply
for inconsistency of walk, composed the Gospel in a
pure form,(15) but false apostles interpolated their
true record; and if our own copies have been made from
these,(16) where will that genuine text(17) of the
apostle's writings be found which has not suffered
adulteration? Which was it that enlightened Paul, and
through him Luke? It is either completely blotted out,
as if by some deluge--being obliterated by the inundation
of falsifiers--in which case even Marcion does not
possess the true Gospel; or else, is that very edition
which Marcion alone possesses the true one, that is,
of the apostles? How, then, does that agree with ours,
which is said not to be (the work) of apostles, but
of Luke? Or else, again, if that which Marcion uses
is not to be attributed to Luke simply because it does
agree with ours (which, of course,(18) is, also adulterated
in its title), then it is the work of apostles. Our
Gospel, therefore, which is in agreement with it, is
equally the work of apostles, but also adulterated
in its title. (19)

CHAP. IV.--EACH SIDE CLAIMS TO POSSESS THE TRUE GOSPEL.
ANTIQUITY THE CRITERION OF TRUTH IN SUCH A MATTER.
MARCION'S PRETENSIONS AS AN AMENDER OF THE GOSPEL.

We must follow, then, the clue(20) of our discussion,
meeting every effort of our opponents

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with reciprocal vigor. I say that my Gospel is the true
one; Marcion, that his is. I affirm that Marcion's
Gospel is adulterated; Marcion, that mine is. Now what
is to settle the point for us, except it be that principle(1)
of time, which rules that the authority lies with that
which shall be found to be more ancient; and assumes
as an elemental truth,(2) that corruption (of doctrine)
belongs to the side which shall be convicted of comparative
lateness in its origin.(3) For, inasmuch as error(4)
is falsification of truth, it must needs be that truth
therefore precede error. A thing must exist prior to
its suffering any casualty;(5) and an object(6) must
precede all rivalry to itself. Else how absurd it would
be, that, when we have proved our position to be the
older one, and Marcion's the later, ours should yet
appear to be the false one, before it had even received
from truth its objective existence;(7) and Marcion's
should also be supposed to have experienced rivalry
at our hands, even before its publication; and, in
fine, that that should be thought to be the truer position
which is the later one--a century(8) later than the
publication of all the many and great facts and records
of the Christian religion, which certainly could not
have been published without, that is to say, before,
the truth of the gospel. With regard, then, to the
pending(9) question, of Luke's Gospel (so far as its
being the common property(10) of ourselves and Marcion
enables it to be decisive of the truth,(11)) that portion
of it which we alone receive(12) is so much older than
Marcion, that Marcion, himself once believed it, when
in the first warmth of faith he contributed money to
the Catholic church, which along with himself was afterwards
rejected,(13) when he fell away from our truth into
his own heresy. What if the Marcionites have denied
that he held the primitive faith amongst ourselves,
in the face even of his own letter? What, if they do
not acknowledge the letter? They, at any rate, receive
his Antitheses; and more than that, they make ostentatious
use(14) of them. Proof out of these is enough for me.
For if the Gospel, said to be Luke's which is current
amongst us(15) (we shall see whether it be also

current with Marcion), is the very one which, as Marcion
argues in his Antitheses, was interpolated by the defenders
of Judaism, for the purpose of such a conglomeration
with it of the law and the prophets as should enable
them out of it to fashion their Christ, surely he could
not have so argued about it, unless he had found it
(in such a form). No one censures things before they
exist,(16) when he knows not whether they will come
to pass. Emendation never precedes the fault. To be
sure,(17) an amender of that Gospel, which had been
all topsy-turvy(18) from the days of Tiberius to those
of Antoninus, first presented himself in Marcion alone--so
long looked for by Christ, who was all along regretting
that he had been in so great a hurry to send out his
apostles without the support of Marcion! But for all
that,(19) heresy, which is for ever mending the Gospels,
and corrupting them in the act, is an affair of man's
audacity, not of God's authority; and if Marcion be
even a disciple, he is yet not "above his master;"(20)
if Marcion be an apostle, still as Paul says, "Whether
it be I or they, so we preach;"(21) if Marcion
be a prophet, even "the spirits of the prophets
will be subject to the prophets,"(22) for they
are not the authors of confusion, but of peace; or
if Marcion be actually an angel, he must rather be
designated "as anathema than as a preacher of
the gospel,"(23) because it is a strange gospel
which he has preached. So that, whilst he amends, he
only confirms both positions: both that our Gospel
is the prior one, for he amends that which he has previously
fallen in with; and that that is the later one, which,
by putting it together out of the emendations of ours,
he has made his own Gospel, and a novel one too.

CHAP. V.--BY THE RULE OF ANTIQUITY, THE CATHOLIC GOSPELS
ARE FOUND TO BE TRUE, INCLUDING THE REAL ST. LUKE'S.
MARCION'S ONLY A MUTILATED EDITION. THE HERETIC'S WEAKNESS
AND INCONSISTENCY IN IGNORING THE OTHER GOSPELS.(24)

On the whole, then, if that is evidently more true
which is earlier, if that is earlier which is from
the very beginning, if that is from the beginning which
has the apostles for its authors, then it will certainly
be quite as evident, that that comes down from the
apos-

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tles, which has been kept as a sacred deposit(1) in
the churches of the apostles. Let us see what milk
the Corinthians drank from Paul; to what rule of faith
the Galatians were brought for correction; what the
Philippians, the Thessalonians, the Ephesians read
by it; what utterance also the Romans give, so very
near(2) (to the apostles), to whom Peter and Paul conjointly(3)
bequeathed the gospel even sealed with their own blood.
We have also St. John's foster churches.(4) For although
Marcion rejects his Apocalypse, the orders of the bishops
(thereof), when traced up to their origin, will yet
rest on John as their author. In the same manner is
recognised the excellent source(6) of the other churches.
I say, therefore, that in them (and not simply such
of them as were rounded by apostles, but in all those
which are united with them in the fellowship of the
mystery of the gospel of Christ(7)) that Gospel of
Luke which we are defending with all our might has
stood its ground from its very first publication; whereas
Marcion's Gospel is not known to most people, and to
none whatever is it known without being at the same
time(8) condemned. It too, of course,(9) has its churches,
but specially its own--as late as they are spurious;
and should you want to know their original,(10) you
will more easily discover apostasy in it than apostolicity,
with Marcion forsooth as their founder, or some one
of Marcion's swarm.(11) Even wasps make combs;(12)
so also these Marcionites make churches. The same authority
of the apostolic churches will afford evidence(13)
to the other Gospels also, which we possess equally
through their means,(14) and according to their usage--I
mean the Gospels of John and Matthew--whilst that which
Mark published may be affirmed to be Peter's(15) whose
interpreter Mark was. For even Luke's form(16) of the
Gospel men unsually ascribe to Paul.(17) And it may
well seem(18) that the works which disciples publish
belong to their masters. Well, then, Marcion ought
to be called to a strict account(19) concerning these
(other Gospels) also,

for having omitted them, and insisted in preference(20)
on Luke; as if they, too, had not had free course in
the churches, as well as Luke's Gospel, from the beginning.
Nay, it is even more credible that they(21) existed
from the very beginning; for, being the work of apostles,
they were prior, and coeval in origin with(22) the
churches themselves. But how comes it to pass, if the
apostles published nothing, that their disciples were
more forward in such a work; for they could not have
been disciples, without any instruction from their
masters? If, then, it be evident that these (Gospels)
also were current in the churches, why did not Marcion
touch them--either to amend them if they were adulterated,
or to acknowledge them if they were uncorrupt? For
it is but natural(23) that they who were perverting
the gospel, should be more solicitous about the perversion
of those things whose authority they knew to be more
generally received. Even the false apostles (were so
called) on this very account, because they imitated
the apostles by means of their falsification. In as
far, then, as he might have amended what there was
to amend, if found corrupt, in so far did he firmly
imply(24) that all was free from corruption which he
did not think required amendment. In short,(25) he
simply amended what he thought was corrupt; though,
indeed, not even this justly, because it was not really
corrupt. For if the (Gospels) of the apostles(26) have
come down to us in their integrity, whilst Luke's,
which is received amongst us,(27) so far accords with
their rule as to be on a par with them in permanency
of reception in the churches, it clearly follows that
Luke's Gospel also has come down to us in like integrity
until the sacrilegious treatment of Marcion. In short,
when Marcion laid hands on it, it then became diverse
and hostile to the Gospels of the apostles. I will
therefore advise his followers, that they either change
these Gospels, however late to do so, into a conformity
with their own, whereby they may seem to be in agreement
with the apostolic writings (for they are daily retouching
their work, as daily they are convicted by us); or
else that they blush for their master, who stands self-condemned(28)
either way--when once(29) he hands on the truth of
the gospel conscience smitten, or again(29) subverts
it by shameless tampering.

351

Such are the summary arguments which we use, when we
take up arms(1) against heretics for the faith(2) of
the gospel, maintaining both that order of periods,
which rules that a late date is the mark of forgers,(3)
and that authority of churches(4) which lends support
to the tradition of the apostles; because truth must
needs precede the forgery, and proceed straight from
those by whom it has been handed on.

CHAP.VI.--MARCION'S OBJECT IN ADULTERATING THE GOSPEL.
NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE CHRIST OF THE CREATOR AND
THE CHRIST OF THE GOSPEL. NO RIVAL CHRIST ADMISSIBLE.
THE CONNECTION OF THE TRUE CHRIST WITH THE DISPENSATION
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT ASSERTED.

But we now advance a step further on, and challenge
(as we promised to do) the very Gospel of Marcion,
with the intention of thus proving that it has been
adulterated. For it is certain(5) that the whole aim
at which he has strenuously laboured even in the drawing
up of his Antitheses, centres in this, that he may
establish a diversity between the Old and the New Testaments,
so that his own Christ may be separate from the Creator,
as belonging to this rival god, and as alien from the
law and the prophets. It is certain, also, that with
this view(6) he has erased everything that was contrary
to his own opinion and made for the Creator, as if
it had been interpolated by His advocates, whilst everything
which agreed with his own opinion he has retained.
The latter statements we shall strictly examine;(7)
and if they shall turn out rather for our side, and
shatter the assumption of Marcion, we shall embrace
them. It will then become evident, that in retaining
them he has shown no less of the defect of blindness,
which characterizes heresy, than he displayed when
he erased all the former class of subjects. Such, then,
is to be(8) the drift and form of my little treatise;
subject, of course, to whatever condition may have
become requisite on both sides of the question.(9)
Marcion has laid down the position, that Christ who
in the days of Tiberius was, by a previously unknown
god, revealed for the salvation of all nations, is
a different being from Him who was ordained by God
the Creator for the restoration

of the Jewish state, and who is yet to come. Between
these he interposes the separation of(10) a great and
absolute difference--as great as lies between what
is just and what is good;(11) as great as lies between
the law and the gospel; as great, (in short,) as is
the difference between Judaism and Christianity. Hence
will arise also our rule,(12) by which we determine(13)
that there ought to be nothing in common between the
Christ of the rival god and the Creator; but that (Christ)
must be pronounced to belong to the Creator,(14) if
He has administered His dispensations, fulfilled His
prophecies, promoted(15) His laws, given reality to(16)
His promises, revived His mighty power,(17) remoulded
His determinations(18) expressed His attributes, His
properties. This law and this rule I earnestly request
the reader to have ever in his mind, and so let him
begin to investigate whether Christ be Marcion's or
the Creator's.

CHAP.VII.--MARCION REJECTED THE PRECEDINGPORTION OF
ST. LUKE'S GOSPEL. THEREFORE THIS REVIEW OPENS WITH
AN EXAMINATION OF THE CASE OF THE EVIL SPIRIT IN THE
SYNAGOGUE OF CAPERNAUM. HE WHOM THE DEMON ACKNOWLEDGED
WAS THE CREATOR'S CHRIST.

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius(19)
(for such is Marcion's proposition) he "came down
to the Galilean city of Capernaum," of course
meaning(20) from the heaven of the Creator, to which
he had previously descended from his own. What then
had been his Course,(21) for him to be described as
first descending from his own heaven to the Creator's?
For why should I abstain from censuring those parts
of the statement which do not satisfy the requirement
of an ordinary narrative, but always end in a falsehood?
To be sure, our censure has been once for all expressed
in the question, which we have already(22) suggested:
Whether, when descending through the Creator's domain,
and indeed in hostility to him, he could possibly
have been admitted by him, and by him been transmitted
to the earth, which was equally his territory? Now,
however, I want also to know the remainder of his course
down, as-

352

suming that he came down. For we must not be too nice
in inquiring(1) whether it is supposed that he was
seen in any place. To come into view(2) indicates(3)
a sudden unexpected glance, which for a moment fixed(4)
the eye upon the object that passed before the view,
without staying. But when it happens that a descent
has been effected, it is apparent, and comes under
the notice of the eyes.(5) Moreover, it takes account
of fact, and thus obliges one to examine in what condition
with what preparation,(6) with how much violence or
moderation, and further, at what time of the day or
night, the descent was made; who, again, saw the descent,
who reported it, who seriously avouched the fact, which
certainly was not easy to be believed, even after the
asseveration. It is, in short, too bad(7) that Romulus
should have had in Proculus an avoucher of his ascent
to heaven, when the Christ of (this) god could not
find any one to announce his descent from heaven; just
as if the ascent of the one and the descent of the
other were not effected on one and the same ladder
of falsehood! Then, what had he to do with Galilee,
if he did not belong to the Creator by whom(8) that
region was destined (for His Christ) when about to
enter on His ministry?(9) As Isaiah says: "Drink
in this first, and be prompt, O region of Zabulon and
land of Nephthalim, and ye others who (inhabit) the
sea-coast, and that of Jordan, Galilee of the nations,
ye people who sit in darkness, behold a great light;
upon you, who inhabit (that) land, sitting in the shadow
of death, the light hath arisen."(10) It is, however,
well that Marcion's god does claim to be the enlightener
of the nations, that so he might have the better reason
for coming down from heaven; only, if it must needs
be,(11) he should rather have made Pontus his place
of descent than Galilee. But since both the place and
the work of illumination according

to the prophecy are compatible with Christ, we begin
to discern(12) that He is the subject of the prophecy,
which shows that at the very outset of His ministry,
He came not to destroy the law and the prophets, but
rather to fulfil them;(13) for Marcion has erased the
passage as an interpolation.(14) It will, however,
be vain for him to deny that Christ uttered in word
what He forthwith did partially indeed. For the prophecy
about place He at once fulfilled. From heaven straight
to the synagogue. As the adage runs: "The business
on which we are come, do at once." Marcion must
even expunge from the Gospel, "I am not sent but
unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel;"(15)
and, "It is not meet to take the children's bread,
and to cast it to dogs,"(16)--in order, forsooth,
that Christ may not appear to be an Israelite. But
facts will satisfy me instead of words. Withdraw all
the sayings of my Christ, His acts shall speak. Lo,
He enters the synagogue; surely (this is going) to
the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Behold, it is
to Israelites first that He offers the "bread"
of His doctrine; surely it is because they are "children"
that He shows them this priority.(17) Observe, He does
not yet impart it to others; surely He passes them
by as "dogs." For to whom else could He better
have imparted it, than to such as were strangers to
the Creator, if He especially belonged not to the Creator?
And yet how could He have been admitted into the synagogue--one
so abruptly appearing,(18) so unknown; one, of whom
no one had as yet been apprised of His tribe, His nation,
His family, and lastly, His enrolment in the census
of Augustus--that most faithful witness of the Lord's
nativity, kept in the archives of Rome? They certainly
would have remembered, if they did not know Him to
be circumcised, that He must not be admitted into their
most holy places. And even if He had the general right
of entering(19) the synagogue (like other Jews), yet
the function of giving instruction was allowed only
to a man who was extremely well known, and examined
and tried, and for some time invested with the privilege
after experience duly attested elsewhere. But "they
were all astonished at His doctrine." Of course
they were; "for, says (St. Luke), "His word
was with power(20)--not because He taught in opposition
to the law and the proph-

0
353

ets. No doubt, His divine discourse(1) gave forth both
power and grace, building up rather than pulling down
the substance of the law and the prophets. Otherwise,
instead of "astonishment, they would feel horror.
It would not be admiration, but aversion, prompt and
sure, which they would bestow on one who was the destroyer
of law and prophets, and the especial propounder as
a natural consequence of a rival god; for he would
have been unable to teach anything to the disparagement
of the law and the prophets, and so far of the Creator
also, without premising the doctrine of a different
and rival divinity, Inasmuch, then, as the Scripture
makes no other statement on the matter than that the
simple force and power of His word produced astonishment,
it more naturally(2) shows that His teaching was in
accordance with the Creator by not denying (that it
was so), than that it was in opposition to the Creator,
by not asserting (such a fact). And thus He will either
have to be acknowledged as belonging to Him,(3) in
accordance with whom He taught; or else will have to
be adjudged a deceiver since He taught in accordance
with One whom He had come to oppose. In the same passage,
"the spirit of an unclean devil" exclaims:
"What have we to do with Thee, Thou Jesus? Art
Thou come to destroy us? I know Thee who Thou art,
the Holy One of God."(4) I do not here raise the
question whether this appellation was suitable to one
who ought not to be called Christ, unless he were sent
by the Creator.(5) Elsewhere(6) there has been already
given a full consideration of His titles. My present
discussion is, how the evil spirit could have known
that He was called by such a name, when there had never
at any time been uttered about Him a single prophecy
by a god who was unknown, and up to that time silent,
of whom it was not possible for Him to be attested
as "the Holy One," as (of a god) unknown
even to his own Creator. What similar event could he
then have published(7) of a new deity, whereby he might
betoken for "the holy one" of the rival god?
Simply that he went into the synagogue, and did nothing
even in word against the Creator? As therefore he could
not by any means acknowledge him, whom he was ignorant
of, to be Jesus and the Holy One of God; so did he
acknowledge Him whom he knew (to be

both). For he remembered how that the prophet had prophesied(8)
of "the Holy One" of God, and how that God's
name of "Jesus" was in the son of Nun.(9)
These facts he had also received(10) from the angel,
according to our Gospel: "Wherefore that which
shall be born of thee shall be called the Holy One,
the Son of God;"(11) and, "Thou shalt call
his name Jesus."(12) Thus he actually had (although
only an evil spirit) some idea of the Lord's dispensation,
rather than Of any strange and heretofore imperfectly
understood one. Because he also premised this question:
"What have we to do with Thee?"--not as if
referring to a strange Jesus, to whom pertain the evil
spirits of the Creator. Nor did he say, What hast Thou
to do with us? but, "What have we to do with Thee?"
as if deploring himself, and deprecating his own calamity;
at the prospect of which he adds: "Art Thou come
to destroy us?" So completely did he acknowledge
in Jesus the Son of that God who was judicial and avenging,
and (so to speak) severe,(13) and not of him who was
simply good,(14) and knew not how to destroy or how
to punish! Now for what purpose have we adduced his
passage first?(15) In order to show that Jesus was
neither acknowledged by the evil spirit, nor affirmed
by Himself, to be any other than the Creator's. Well,
but Jesus rebuked him, you say. To be sure he did,
as being an envious (spirit), and in his very confession
only petulant, and evil in adulation--just as if it
had been Christ's highest glory to have come for the
destruction of demons, and not for the salvation of
mankind; whereas His wish really was that His disciples
should not glory in the subjection of evil spirits
but in the fair beauty of salvation.(16) Why else(17)
did He rebuke him? If it was because he was entirely
wrong (in his invocation), then He was neither Jesus
nor the Holy One of God; if it was because he was partially
wrong--for having supposed him to be, rightly enough,(18)
Jesus and the Holy One of God, but also as belonging
to the Creator--most unjustly would He have rebuked
him for thinking what he knew he ought to think (about
Him), and for not supposing that of Him which he knew
not that he ought to suppose--that he was another Jesus,
and the holy one of the other god. If,

354

however, the rebuke has not a more probable meaning(1)
than that which we ascribe to it, follows that the
evil spirit made no mistake, and was not rebuked for
lying; for it was Jesus Himself, besides whom it was
impossible for the evil spirit to have acknowledged
any other, whilst Jesus affirmed that He was He whom
the evil spirit had acknowledged, by not rebuking him
for uttering a lie.

CHAP. VIII."--OTHER PROOFS FROM THE SAME CHAPTER,
THAT JESUS, WHO PREACHED AT NAZARETH, AND WAS ACKNOWLEDGED
BY CERTAIN DEMONS AS CHRIST THE SON OF GOD, WAS THE
CREATOR'S CHRIST. AS OCCASION OFFERS, THE DOCETIC ERRORS
OF MARCION ARE EXPOSED.

The Christ of the Creator had(2) to be called a
Nazarene according to prophecy; whence the Jews also
designate us, on that very account,(3) Nazerenes(4)
after Him. For we are they of whom it is written, "Her
Nazarites were whiter than snow;"(5) even they
who were once defiled with the stains of sin, and darkened
with the clouds of ignorance. But to Christ the title
Nazarene was destined to become a suitable one, from
the hiding-place of His infancy, for which He went
down and dwelt at Nazareth,(6) to escape from Archelaus
the son of Herod. This fact I have not refrained from
mentioning on this account, because it behoved Marcion's
Christ to have forborne all connection whatever with
the domestic localities of the Creator's Christ, when
he had so many towns in Judaea which had not been by
the prophets thus assigned(7) to the Creator's Christ.
But Christ will be (the Christ) of the prophets, wheresoever
He is found in accordance with the prophets. And yet
even at Nazareth He is not remarked as having preached
anything new,(8) whilst in another verse He is said
to have been rejected(9) by reason of a simple proverb.(10)
Here at once, when I observe that they laid their hands
on Him, I cannot help drawing a conclusion respecting
His bodily substance, which cannot be believed to have
been a phantom,(11) since it was capable of being touched
and even violently handled, when He was seized and
taken and led to the very brink of a precipice. For
although He escaped through the

midst of them, He had already experienced their rough
treatment, and afterwards went His way, no doubt(12)
because the crowd (as usually happens) gave way, or
was even broken through; but not because it was eluded
as by an impalpable disguise,(13) which, if there had
been such, would not at all have submitted to any touch.
"Tangere enim et tangi, nisi corpus, nulla potest
res,"(14)

is even a sentence worthy of a place in the world's
wisdom. In short, He did himself touch others, upon
whom He laid His hands, which were capable of being
felt, and conferred the blessings of healing,(15) which
were not less true, not less unimaginary, than were
the hands wherewith He bestowed them. He was therefore
the very Christ of Isaiah, the healer of our sicknesses.(16)
"Surely," says he, "He hath borne our
griefs and carried our sorrows." Now the Greeks
are accustomed to use for carry a word which also signifies
to take away. A general promise Is enough for me in
passing.(17) Whatever were the cures which Jesus effected,
He is mine. We will come, however, to the kinds of
cures. To liberate men, then, from evil spirits, is
a cure of sickness. Accordingly, wicked spirits (just
in the manner of our former example) used to go forth
with a testimony, exclaiming, "Thou art the Son
of God,"(18)--of what God, is clear enough from
the case itself. But they were rebuked, and ordered
not to speak; precisely because(19) Christ willed Himself
to be proclaimed by men, not by unclean spirits, as
the Son of God--even that Christ alone to whom this
was befitting, because He had sent beforehand men through
whom He might become known, and who were assuredly
worthier preachers. It was natural to Him(20) to refuse
the proclamation of an unclean spirit, at whose command
there was an abundance of saints. He, however,(21)
who had never been foretold (if, indeed, he wished
to be acknowledged; for if he did not wish so much,
his coming was in vain), would not have spurned the
testimony of an alien or any sort of substance, who
did not happen to have a substance of his own,(22)
but had descended in an alien one. And now, too, as
the destroyer also of the Creator, he would have desired
nothing better

355

than to be acknowledged by His spirits, and to be divulged
for the sake of being feared:(1) only that Marcion
says(2) that his god is not feared; maintaining that
a good being Is not an object of fear, but only a judicial
being, in whom reside the grounds(3) of fear--anger,
severity, judgments, vengeance, condemnation. But it
was from fear, undoubtedly, that the evil spirits were
cowed.(4) Therefore they confessed that (Christ) was
the Son of a God who was to be feared, because they
would have an occasion of not submitting if there were
none for fearing. Besides, He showed that He was to
be feared, because He drave them out, not by persuasion
like a good being, but by command and reproof. Or else
did he(5) reprove them, because they were making him
an object of fear, when all the while he did not want
to be feared? And in what manner did he wish them to
go forth, when they could not do so except with fear?
So that he fell into the dilemma(6) of having to conduct
himself contrary to his nature, whereas he might in
his simple goodness have at once treated them with
leniency. He fell, too, into another false position(7)--of
prevarication, when he permitted himself to be feared
by the demons as the Son of the Creator, that he might
drive them out, not indeed by his own power, but by
the authority of the Creator. "He departed, and
went into a desert place."(8) This was, indeed,
the Creator's customary region. It was proper that
the Word(9) should there appear in body, where He had
aforetime, wrought in a cloud. To the gospel also was
suitable that condition of place(10) which had once
been determined on for the law.(11) "Let the wilderness
and the solitary place, therefore, be glad and rejoice;"
so had Isaiah promised.(12) When "stayed"
by the crowds, He said," I must preach the kingdom
of God to other cities also."(13) Had He displayed
His God anywhere yet? I suppose as yet nowhere. But
was He speaking of those who knew of another god also?
I do not believe so. If, therefore, neither He had
preached, nor they had known, any other God but the
Creator, He was announcing the kingdom of that God
whom He knew to be the only God known to those who
were listening to Him.

CHAP. IX.--OUT OF ST. LUKE'S FIFTH CHAPTER ARE FOUND
PROOFS OF CHRIST'S BELONGING TO THE CREATOR, E.G. IN
THE CALL OF FISHERMEN TO THE APOSTOLIC OFFICE, AND
IN THE CLEANSING OF THE LEPER. CHRIST COMPARED WITH
THE PROPHET ELISHA.

Out of so many kinds of occupations, why indeed
had He such respect for that of fishermen, as to select
from it for apostles Simon and the sons of Zebedee
(for it cannot seem to be the mere fact itself for
which the narrative was meant to be drawn out(14)),
saying to Peter, when he trembled at the very large
draught of the fishes, "Fear not; from henceforth
thou shalt catch men?"(15) By saying this, He
suggested to them the meaning of the fulfilled prophecy,
that it was even He who by Jeremiah had foretold, "Behold,
I will send many fishers; and they shall fish them,"(16)
that is, men. Then at last they left their boats, and
followed Him, understanding that it was He who had
begun to accomplish what He had declared. It is quite
another case, when he affected to choose from the college
of shipmasters, intending one day to appoint the shipmaster
Marcion his apostle. We have indeed already laid it
down, in opposition to his Antitheses, that the position
of Marcion derives no advantage from the diversity
which he supposes to exist between the Law and the
Gospel, inasmuch as even this was ordained by the Creator,
and indeed predicted in the promise of the new Law,
and the new Word, and the new Testament. Since, however,
he quotes with especial care,(17) as a proof in his
domain,(18) a certain companion in misery (<greek>suntalaipwron</greek>),
and associate in hatred (<greek>summisoumenon</greek>),
with himself, for the cure of leprosy,(19) I shall
not be sorry to meet him, and before anything else
to point out to him the force of the law figuratively
interpreted, which, in this example of a leper (who
was not to be touched, but was rather to be removed
from all intercourse with others), prohibited any communication
with a person who was defiled with sins, with whom
the apostle also forbids us even to eat food,(20) forasmuch
as the taint of sins would be communicated as if contagious:
wherever a man should mix himself with the sinner.
The Lord, therefore, wishing that the law should be
more profoundly understood as signifying spiritual
truths by carnal facts(21)--and thus(22) not de-

356

stroying, but rather building up, that law which He
wanted to have more earnestly acknowledged-touched
the leper, by whom (even although as man He might have
been defiled) He could not be defiled as God, being
of course incorruptible. The prescription, therefore,
could not be meant for Him, that He was bound to observe
the law and not touch the unclean person, seeing that
contact with the unclean would not cause defilement
to Him. I thus teach that this (immunity) is consistent
in my Christ, the rather when I show that it is not
consistent in yours. Now, if it was as an enemy(1)
of the law that He touched the leper--disregarding
the precept of the law by a contempt of the defilement--how
could he be defiled, when he possessed not a body(2)
which could be defiled? For a phantom is not susceptible
of defilement. He therefore, who could not be defiled,
as being a phantom, will not have an immunity from
pollution by any divine power, but owing to his fantastic
vacuity; nor can he be regarded as having despised
pollution, who had not in fact any material capacity(3)
for it; nor, in like manner, as having destroyed the
law, who had escaped defilement from the occasion of
his phantom nature, not from any display of virtue.
If, however, the Creator's prophet Elisha cleansed
Naaman the Syrian alone,(4) to the exclusion of(5)
so many lepers in Israel,(6) this fact contributes
nothing to the distinction of Christ, as if he were
in this way the better one for cleansing this Israelite
leper, although a stranger to him, whom his own Lord
had been unable to cleanse. The cleansing of the Syrian
rather(7) was significant throughout the nations of
the world(8) of their own cleansing in Christ their
light,(9) steeped as they were in the stains of the
seven deadly sins:(10) idolatry, blasphemy, murder,
adultery, fornication, false-witness, and fraud.(11)
Seven times,

therefore, as if once for each," did he wash in
Jordan; both in order that he might celebrate the expiation
of a perfect hebdomad;(13) and because the virtue and
fulness of the one baptism was thus solemnly imputed(14)
to Christ, alone, who was one day to establish on earth
not only a revelation, but also a baptism, endued with
compendious efficacy.(15) Even Marcion finds here an
antithesis:(16) how that Elisha indeed required a material
resource, applied water, and that seven times; whereas
Christ, by the employment of a word only, and that
but once for all, instantly effected(17) the cure.
And surely I might venture(18) to claim(19) the Very
Word also as of the Creator's substance. There is nothing
of which He who was the primitive Author is not also
the more powerful one. Forsooth,(20) it is incredible
that that power of the Creator should have, by a word,
produced a remedy for a single malady, which once by
a word brought into being so vast a fabric as the world!
From what can the Christ of the Creator be better discerned,
than from the power of His word? But Christ is on this
account another (Christ), because He acted differently
from Elisha--because, in fact, the master is more powerful
than his servant! Why, Marcion, do you lay down the
rule, that things are done by servants just as they
are by their very masters? Are you not afraid that
it will turn to your discredit, if you deny that Christ
belongs to the Creator, on the ground that He was once
more powerful than a servant of the Creator--since,
in comparison with the weakness of Elisha, He is acknowledged
to be the greater, if indeed greater!(21) For the cure
is the same, although there is a difference in the
working of it. What has your Christ performed more
than my Elisha? Nay, what great thing has the word
of your Christ performed, when it has simply done that
which a river of the Creator effected? On the same
principle occurs all the rest. So far as renouncing
all human glory went, He forbade the man to publish
abroad the cure; but so far as the honour of the law
was concerned, He requested that the usual course should
be followed: "Go, show thyself to the priest,
and

357

present the offering which Moses commanded."(1)
For the figurative signs of the law in its types He
still would have observed, because of their prophetic
import.(2) These types signified that a man, once a
sinner, but afterwards purified(3) from the stains
thereof by the word of God, was bound to offer unto
God in the temple a gift, even prayer and thanksgiving
in the church through Christ Jesus, who is the Catholic
Priest of the Father.(4) Accordingly He added: "that
it may be for a testimony unto you"--one, no doubt,
whereby He would testify that He was not destroying
the law, but fulfilling it; whereby, too, He would
testify that it was He Himself who was foretold as
about to undertake(5) their sicknesses and infirmities.
This very consistent and becoming explanation of "the
testimony," that adulator of his own Christ, Marcion
seeks to exclude under the cover of mercy and gentleness.
For, being both good (such are his words), and knowing,
besides, that every man who had been freed from leprosy
would be sure to perform the solemnities of the law,
therefore He gave this precept. Well, what then? Has
He continued in his goodness (that is to say, in his
permission of the law) or not? For if he has persevered
in his goodness, he will never become a destroyer of
the law; nor will he ever be accounted as belonging
to another god, because there would not exist that
destruction of the law which would constitute his claim
to belong to the other god. If, however, he has not
continued good, by a subsequent destruction of the
law, it is a false testimony which he has since imposed
upon them in his cure of the leper; because he has
forsaken his goodness, in destroying the law. If, therefore,
he was good whilst upholding the law,(6) he has now
become evil as a destroyer of the law. However, by
the support which he gave to the law, he affirmed that
the law was good. For no one permits himself in the
support of an evil thing. Therefore he is not only
bad if he has permitted obedience to a bad law; but
even worse still, if he has appeared(7) as the destroyer
of a good law. So that if he commanded the offering
of the gift because he knew that every cured leper
would be sure to bring one; he possibly abstained from
commanding what he knew would be spontaneously done.
In vain, therefore, was his coming down, as if with
the intention of destroying the law, when he makes
concessions to the keepers of the law. And yet,(8)
because he knew their disposition,(9) he ought the
more earnestly to have prevented their neglect of the
law,(10) since he had come for this purpose. Why then
did he not keep silent, that man might of his own simple
will obey the law? For then might he have seemed to
some extent(11)to have persisted in his patience. But
he adds also his own authority increased by the weight
of this "testimony." Of what testimony, I
ask,(12) if not that of the assertion of the law? Surely
it matters not in what way he asserted the law--whether
as good, or as supererogatory,(13) or as patient, or
as inconstant-provided, Marcion, I drive you from your
position.(14) Observe,(15) he commanded that the law
should be fulfilled. In whatever way he commanded it,
in the same way might he also have first uttered that
sentiment:(16) "I came not to destroy the law,
but to fulfil it."(17) What business, therefore,
had you to erase out of the Gospel that which was quite
consistent in it?(18) For you have confessed that,
in his goodness, he did in act what you deny that he
did in word.(19) We have therefore good proof that
He uttered the word, in the fact that He did the deed;
and that you have rather expunged the Lord's word,
than that our (evangelists)(20) have inserted it.

CHAP. X.--FURTHER PROOFS OF THE SAME TRUTH IN THE SAME
CHAPTER, FROM THE HEALING OF THE PARALYTIC, AND FROM
THE DESIGNATION SON OF MAN WHICH JESUS GIVES HIMSELF.
TERTULLIAN SUSTAINS HIS ARGUMENT BY SEVERAL QUOTATIONS
FROM THE PROPHETS.

The sick of the palsy is healed,(21) and that in
public, in the sight of the people. For, says Isaiah,
"they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the
excellency of our God."(22) What glory, and what
excellency? "Be strong, ye weak hands, and ye
feeble knees:"(23) this refers to the palsy. "Be
strong; fear not."(24) Be strong is not vainly
repeated, nor is fear not vainly added; because with
the

358

renewal of the limbs there was to be, according to the
promise, a restoration also of bodily energies: "Arise,
and take up thy couch;" and likewise moral courage(1)
not to be afraid of those who should say, "Who
can forgive sins, but God alone?" So that you
have here not only the fulfilment of the prophecy which
promised a particular kind of healing, but also of
the symptoms which followed the cure. In like manner,
you should also recognise Christ in the same prophet
as the forgiver of sins. "For," he says,
"He shall remit to many their sins, and shall
Himself take away our sins."(2) For in an earlier
passage, speaking in the person of the Lord himself,
he had said: "Even though your sins be as scarlet,
I will make them as white as snow; even though they
be like crimson, I will whiten them as wool."(3)
In the scarlet colour He indicates the blood of the
prophets; in the crimson, that of the Lord, as the
brighter. Concerning the forgiveness of sins, Micah
also says: "Who is a God like unto Thee? pardoning
iniquity, and passing by the transgressions of the
remnant of Thine heritage. He retaineth not His anger
as a testimony against them, because He delighteth
in mercy. He will turn again, and will have compassion
upon us; He wipeth away our iniquities, and casteth
our sins into the depths of the sea."(4) Now,
if nothing of this sort had been predicted of Christ,
I should find in the Creator examples of such a benignity
as would hold out to me the promise of similar affections
also in the Son of whom He is the Father. I see how
the Ninevites obtained forgiveness of their sins from
the Creator(5)--not to say from Christ, even then,
because from the beginning He acted in the Father's
name. I read, too, how that, when David acknowledged
his sin against Uriah, the prophet Nathan said unto
him, "The Lord hath cancelled(6) thy sin, and
thou shalt not die;"(7) how king Ahab in like
manner, the husband of Jezebel, guilty of idolatry
and of the blood of Naboth, obtained pardon because
of his repentance;(8) and how Jonathan the son of Saul
blotted out by his deprecation the guilt of a violated
fast.(9) Why should I recount the frequent restoration
of the nation itself after the forgiveness of their
sins?--by that God, indeed, who will have mercy rather
than sacrifice, and a sinner's repentance rather than
his

death.(10) You will first have to deny that the Creator
ever forgave sins; then you must in reason show(11)
that He never ordained any such prerogative for His
Christ; and so you will prove how novel is that boasted(12)
benevolence of the, of course, novel Christ when you
shall have proved that it is neither compatible with(13)
the Creator nor predicted by the Creator. But whether
to remit sins can appertain to one who is said to be
unable to retain them, and whether to absolve can belong
to him who is incompetent even to condemn, and whether
to forgive is suitable to him against whom no offence
can be committed, are questions which we have encountered
elsewhere,(14) when we preferred to drop suggestions(15)
rather than treat them anew.(16) Concerning the Son
of man our rule(17) is a twofold one: that Christ cannot
lie, so as to declare Himself the Son of man, if He
be not truly so; nor can He be constituted the Son
of man, unless He be born of a human parent, either
father or mother. And then the discussion will turn
on the point, of which human parent He ought to be
accounted the son--of the father or the mother? Since
He is (begotten) of God the Father, He is not, of course,
(the son) of a human father. If He is not of a human
father, it follows that He must be (the son) of a human
mother. If of a human mother, it is evident that she
must be a virgin. For to whom a human father is not
ascribed, to his mother a husband will not be reckoned;
and then to what mother a husband is not reckoned,
the condition of virginity belongs.(18) But if His
mother be not a virgin, two fathers will have to be
reckoned to Him--a divine and a human one. For she
must have a husband, not to be a virgin; and by having
a husband, she would cause two fathers--one divine,
the other human--to accrue to Him, who would thus be
Son both of God and of a man. Such a nativity (if one
may call it so)(19) the mythic stories assign to Castor
or to Hercules. Now, if this distinction be observed,
that is to say, if He be Son of man as born of His
mother, because not begotten of a father, and His mother
be a virgin, because His father is not human--He will
be that Christ whom Isaiah foretold that a virgin should
conceive,(20) On what principle you, Marcion, can admit
Him Son of man, I

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cannot possibly see. If through a human father, then
you deny him to be Son of God; if through a divine
one also,(1) then you make Christ the Hercules of fable;
if through a human mother only, then you concede my
point; if not through a human father also,(2) then
He is not the son of any man,(3) and He must have been
guilty of a lie for having declared Himself to be what
He was not. One thing alone can help you in your difficulty:
boldness on your part either to surname your God as
actually the human father of Christ, as Valentinus
did(4) with his AEon; or else to deny that the Virgin
was human, which even Valentinus did not do. What now,
if Christ be described(5) in Daniel by this very title
of "Son of man?" Is not this enough to prove
that He is the Christ of prophecy? For if He gives
Himself that appellation which was provided in the
prophecy for the Christ of the Creator, He undoubtedly
offers Himself to be understood as Him to whom (the
appellation) was assigned by the prophet. But perhaps(6)
it can be regarded as a simple identity of names;(7)
and yet we have maintained(8) that neither Christ nor
Jesus ought to have been called by these names, if
they possessed any condition of diversity. But as regards
the appellation "Son of man," in as far as
it Occurs by accident,(9) in so far there is a difficulty
in its occurrence along with(10) a casual identity
of names. For it is of pure(11) accident, especially
when the same cause does not appear(12) whereby the
identity may be occasioned. And therefore, if Marcion's
Christ be also said to be born of man, then he too
would receive an identical appellation, and there would
be two Sons of man, as also two Christs and two Jesuses.
Therefore, since the appellation is the sole right
of Him in whom it has a suitable reason,(13) if it
be claimed for another in whom there is an identity
of name, but not of appellation,(14) then the identity
of name even looks suspicious in him for whom is claimed
without reason the identity of appellation. And it
follows that He must be believed to be One and the
Same, who is found to be the more fit to receive both
the name and the appellation; while the other is

excluded, who has no right to the appellation, because
he has no reason to show for it. Nor will any other
be better entitled to both than He who is the earlier,
and has had allotted to Him the name of Christ and
the appellation of Son of man, even the Jesus of the
Creator. It was He who was seen by the king of Babylon
in the furnace with His martyrs: "the fourth,
who was like the Son of man."(15) He also was
revealed to Daniel himself expressly as "the Son
of man, coming in the clouds of heaven" as a Judge,
as also the Scripture shows.(16) What I have advanced
might have been sufficient concerning the designation
in prophecy of the Son of man. But the Scripture offers
me further information, even in the interpretation
of the Lord Himself. For when the Jews, who looked
at Him as merely man, and were not yet sure that He
was God also, as being likewise the Son of God, rightly
enough said that a man could not forgive sins, but
God alone, why did He not, following up their point(17)
about man, answer them,that He(18) had power to remit
sins; inasmuch as, when He mentioned the Son of man,
He also named a human being? except it were because
He wanted, by help of the very designation "Son
of man" from the book of Daniel, so to induce
them to reflect(19) as to show them that He who remitted
sins was God and man--that only Son of man, indeed,
in the prophecy of Daniel, who had obtained the power
of judging, and thereby, of course, of forgiving sins
likewise (for He who judges also absolves); so that,
when once that objection of theirs(20) was shattered
to pieces by their recollection of Scripture, they
might the more easily acknowledge Him to be the Son
of man Himself by His own actual forgiveness of sins.
I make one more observation,(21) how that He has nowhere
as yet professed Himself to be the Son of God--but
for the first time in this passage, in which for the
first time He has remitted sins; that is, in which
for the first time He has used His function of judgment,
by the absolution. All that the opposite side has to
allege in argument against these things, (I beg you)
carefully weigh(22) what it amounts to. For it must
needs strain itself to such a pitch of infatuation
as, on the one hand, to maintain that (their Christ)
is also Son of man, in order to save Him from the charge
of falsehood; and, on the other hand, to deny that
He was born of woman, lest they grant

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that He was the Virgin's son. Since, however, the divine
authority and the nature of the case, and common sense,
do not admit this insane position of the heretics,
we have here the opportunity of putting in a veto(1)
in the briefest possible terms, on the substance of
Christ's body, against Marcion's phantoms. Since He
is born of man, being the Son of man. He is body derived
from body.(2) You may, I assure you,(3) more easily
find a man born without a heart or without brains,
like Marcion himself, than without a body, like Marcion's
Christ. And let this be the limit to your examination
of the heart, or, at any rate, the brains of the heretic
of Pontus.(4)

CHAP. XI.--THE CALL OF LEVI THE PUBLICAN. CHRIST IN
RELATION TO THE BAPTIST. CHRIST AS THE BRIDEGROOM.
THE PARABLE OF THE OLD WINE AND THE NEW. ARGUMENTS
CONNECTING CHRIST WITH THE CREATOR.

The publican who was chosen by the Lord,(5) he adduces
for a proof that he was chosen as a stranger to the
law and uninitiated in(6) Judaism, by one who was an
adversary to the law. The case of Peter escaped his
memory, who, although he was a man of the law, was
not only chosen by the Lord, but also obtained the
testimony of possessing knowledge which was given to
him by the Father.(7) He had nowhere read of Christ's
being foretold as the light, and hope, and expectation
of the Gentiles! He, however, rather spoke of the Jews
in a favourable light, when he said, "The whole
needed not a physician, but they that are sick."(8)
For since by "those that are sick" he meant
that the heathens and publicans should be understood,
whom he was choosing, he affirmed of the Jews that
they were "whole" for whom he said that a
physician was not necessary. This being the case, he
makes a mistake in coming down(9) to destroy the law,
as if for the remedy of a diseased condition. because
they who were living under it were "whole,"
and "not in want of a physician." How, moreover,
does it happen that he proposed the similitude of a
physician, if he did not verify it? For, just as nobody
uses a physician for healthy persons, so will no one
do so for strangers, in so far as he is one of Marcion's
god-made men,(10) having to himself

both a creator and preserver, and a specially good physician,
in his Christ. This much the comparison predetermines,
that a physician is more usually furnished by him to
whom the sick people belong. Whence, too, does John
come upon the scene? Christ, suddenly; and just as
suddenly, John!(11) After this fashion occur all things
in Marcion's system. They have their own special and
plenary course(12) in the Creator's dispensation. Of
John, however, what else I have to say will be found
in another passage.(13) To the several points which
now come before us an answer must be given. This, then,
I will take care to do(14)--demonstrate that, reciprocally,
John is suitable to Christ, and Christ to Joan, the
latter, of course, as a prophet of the Creator, just
as the former is the Creator's Christ; and so the heretic
may blush at frustrating, to his own frustration, the
mission of John the Baptist. For if there had been
no ministry of John at all--"the voice,"
as Isaiah calls him, "of one crying in the wilderness,"
and the preparer of the ways of the Lord by denunciation
and recommendation of repentance; if, too, he had not
baptized (Christ) Himself(15) along with others, nobody
could have challenged the disciples of Christ, as they
ate and drank, to a comparison with the disciples of
John, who were constantly fasting and praying; because,
if there existed any diversity(16) between Christ and
John, and their followers respectively, no exact comparison
would be possible, nor would there be a single point
where it could be challenged. For nobody would feel
surprise, and nobody would be perplexed, although there
should arise rival predictions of a diverse deity,
which should also mutually differ about modes of conduct,(17)
having a prior difference about the authorities(18)
upon which they were based. Therefore Christ belonged
to John, and John to Christ; while both belonged to
the Creator, and both were of the law and the prophets,
preachers and masters. Else Christ would have rejected
the discipline of John, as of the rival god, and would
also have defended the disciples, as very properly
pursuing a different walk, because consecrated to the
service of another and contrary deity. But as it is,
while modestly(19) giving a reason why "the children
of the bridegroom are unable to fast during the

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time the bridegroom is with them," but promising
that "they should afterwards fast, when the bridegroom
was taken away from them,"(1) He neither defended
the disciples, (but rather excused them, as if they
had not been blamed without some reason), nor rejected
the discipline of John, but rather allowed(2) it, referring
it to the time of John, although destining it for His
own time. Otherwise His purpose would have been to
reject it,(3) and to defend its opponents, if He had
not Himself already belonged to it as then in force.
I hold also that it is my Christ who is meant by the
bridegroom, of whom the psalm says: "He is as
a bridegroom coming out of his chamber; His going forth
is from the end of the heaven, and His return is back
to the end of it again."(4) By the mouth of Isaiah
He also says exultingly of the Father: "Let my
soul rejoice in the Lord; for He hath clothed me with
the garment of salvation and with the tunic of joy,
as a bridegroom. He hath put a mitre round about my
head, as a bride."(5) To Himself likewise He appropriates(6)
the church, concerning which the same(7) Spirit says
to Him: "Thou shall clothe Thee with them all,
as with a bridal ornament."(8) This spouse Christ
invites home to Himself also by Solomon from the call
of the Gentiles, because you read: "Come with
me from Lebanon, my spouse."(9) He elegantly makes
mention of Lebanon (the mountain, of course) because
it stands for the name of frankincense with the Greeks;(10)
for it was from idolatry that He betrothed Himself
the church. Deny now, Marcion, your utter madness,
(if you can)! Behold, you impugn even the law of your
god. He unites not in the nuptial bond, nor, when contracted,
does he allow it; no one does he baptize but a coelebs
or a eunuch; until death or divorce does he reserve
baptism.(11) Wherefore, then, do you make his Christ
a bridegroom? This is the designation of Him who united
man and woman, not of him who separated them. You have
erred also in that declaration of Christ, wherein He
seems to make a difference between things new and old.
You are inflated about the old bottles, and brain-muddled
with the new wine;

and therefore to the old (that is to say, to the prior)
gospel you have sewed on the patch of your new-fangled
heresy. I should like to know in what respect the Creator
is inconsistent with Himself.(12) When by Jeremiah
He gave this precept, "Break up for yourselves
new pastures,"(13) does He not turn away from
the old state of things? And when by Isaiah He proclaims
how "old things were passed away; and, behold,
all things, which I am making, are new,"(14) does
He not advert to a new state of things? We have generally
been of opinion's that the destination of the former
state of things was rather promised by the Creator,
and exhibited in reality by Christ, only under the
authority of one and the same God, to whom appertain
both the old things and the new. For new wine is not
put into old bottles, except by one who has the old
bottles; nor does anybody put a new piece to an old
garment, unless the old garment be forthcoming to him.
That person only(16) does not do a thing when it is
not to be done, who has the materials wherewithal to
do it if it were to be done. And therefore, since His
object in making the comparison was to show that He
was separating the new condition(17) of the gospel
from the old state(18) of the law, He proved that that(19)
from which He was separating His own(20) ought not
to have been branded(21) as a separation(22) of things
which were alien to each other; for nobody ever unites
his own things with things that are alien to them,(23)
in order that he may afterwards be able to separate
them from the alien things. A separation is possible
by help of the conjunction through which it is made.
Accordingly, the things which He separated He also
proved to have been once one; as they would have remained,
were it not for His separation. But still we make this
concession, that there is a separation, by reformation,
by amplification,(24) by progress; just as the fruit
is separated from the seed, although the fruit comes
from the seed. So likewise the gospel is separated
from the law, whilst it advances(25) from the law--a
different thing(26) from it, but not an alien one;
diverse, but not contrary. Nor in Christ do we even
find any novel form of discourse. Whether He proposes
simili-

362

tudes or refute questions, it comes from the seventy-seventh
Psalm. "I will open," says He, "my mouth
in a parable" (that is, in a similitude); "I
will utter dark problems" (that is, I will set
forth questions).(1) If you should wish to prove that
a man belonged to another race, no doubt you would
fetch your proof from the idiom of his language.

CHAP. XII.--CHRIST'S AUTHORITY OVER THE SABBATH. AS
ITS LORD HE RECALLED IT FROM PHARISAIC NEGLECT TO THE
ORIGINAL PURPOSE OF ITS INSTITUTION BY THE CREATOR
THE CASE OF THE DISCIPLES WHO PLUCKED THE EARS OF CORN
ON THE SABBATH. THE WITHERED HAND HEALED ON THE SABBATH.

Concerning the Sabbath also I have this to premise,
that this question could not have arisen, if Christ
did not publicly proclaim(2) the Lord of the Sabbath.
Nor could there be any discussion about His annulling(3)
the Sabbath, if He had a right(4) to annul it. Moreover,
He would have the right, if He belonged to the rival
god; nor would it cause surprise to any one that He
did what it was right for Him to do. Men's astonishment
therefore arose from their opinion that it was improper
for Him to proclaim the Creator to be God and yet to
impugn His Sabbath. Now, that we may decide these several
points first, lest we should be renewing them at every
turn to meet each argument of our adversary which rests
on some novel institution s of Christ, let this stand
as a settled point, that discussion concerning the
novel character of each institution ensued on this
account, because as nothing was as yet advanced by
Christ touching any new deity, so discussion thereon
was inadmissible; nor could it be retorted, that from
the very novelty of each several institution another
deity was clearly enough demonstrated by Christ, inasmuch
as it was plain that novelty was not in itself a characteristic
to be wondered at in Christ, because it had been foretold
by the Creator. And it would have been, of course,
but right that a new(6) god should first be expounded,
and his discipline be introduced afterwards; because
it Would be the god that would impart authority to
the discipline, and not the discipline to the god;
except that (to be sure) it has happened that Marcion
acquired his very perverse opinions not from a master,
but his master from his opinion! All other points respecting
the Sabbath I thus rule. If Christ interfered

with(7) the Sabbath, He simply acted after the Creator's
example; inasmuch as in the siege of the city of Jericho
the carrying around the walls of the ark of the covenant
for eight days running, and therefore on a Sabbath-day,
actually(8) annulled the Sabbath, by the Creator's
command--according to the opinion of those who think
this of Christ in this passage of St. Luke, in their
ignorance that neither Christ nor the Creator violated
the Sabbath, as we shall by and by show. And yet the
Sabbath was actually then broken(9) by Joshua,(10)
so that the present charge might be alleged also against
Christ. But even if, as being not the Christ of the
Jews, He displayed a hatred against the Jews' most
solemn day, He was only professedly following(11) the
Creator, as being His Christ, in this very hatred of
the Sabbath; for He exclaims by the mouth of Isaiah:
"Your new moons and your Sabbaths my soul hateth."(12)
Now, in whatever sense these words were spoken, we
know that an abrupt defence must, in a subject of this
sort, be used in answer to an abrupt challenge. I shall
now transfer the discussion to the very matter in which
the teaching of Christ seemed to annul the Sabbath.
The disciples had been hungry; on that the Sabbath
day they had plucked some ears and rubbed them in their
hands; by thus preparing their food, they had violated
the holy day. Christ excuses them, and became their
accomplice in breaking the Sabbath. The Pharisees bring
the charge against Him. Marcion sophistically interprets
the stages of the controversy (if I may call in the
aid of the truth of my Lord to ridicule his arts),
both in the scriptural record and in Christ's purpose.(13)
For from the Creator's Scripture, and from the purpose
of Christ, there is derived a colourable precedent(14)--as
from the example of David, when he went into the temple
on the Sabbath, and provided food by boldly breaking
up the shew-bread.(15) Even he remembered that this
privilege (I mean the dispensation from fasting) was
allowed to the Sabbath from the very beginning, when
the Sabbath-day itself was instituted. For although
the Creator had forbidden that the manna should be
gathered for two days, He yet permitted it on the one
occasion only of the day before the Sabbath,

363

in order that the yesterday's provision of food might
free from fasting the feast of the following Sabbath-day.
Good reason, therefore, had the Lord for pursuing the
same principle in the annulling of the Sabbath (since
that is the word which men will use); good reason,
too, for expressing the Creator's will,(1) when He
bestowed the privilege of not fasting on the Sabbath-day.
In short, He would have then and there(2) put an end
to the Sabbath, nay, to the Creator Himself, if He
had commanded His disciples to fast on the Sabbath-day,
contrary to the intention(3) of the Scripture and of
the Creator's will. But because He did not directly
defend(4) His disciples, but excuses them; because
He interposes human want, as if deprecating censure;
because He maintains the honour of the Sabbath as a
day which is to be free from gloom rather than from
work;(5) because he puts David and his companions on
a level with His own disciples in their fault and their
extenuation; because He is pleased to endorse(6) the
Creator's indulgence:(7) because He is Himself good
according to His example--is He therefore alien from
the Creator? Then the Pharisees watch whether He would
heal on the Sabbath-day,(8) that they might accuse
Him--surely as a violator of the Sabbath, not as the
propounder of a new god; for perhaps I might be content
with insisting on all occasions on this one point,
that another Christ(9) is nowhere proclaimed. The Pharisees,
however, were in utter error concerning the law of
the Sabbath, not observing that its terms were conditional,
when it enjoined rest from labour, making certain distinctions
of labour. For when it says of the Sabbath-day, "In
it thou shalt not do any work of thine,"(10) by
the word thine(11) it restricts the prohibition to
human work--which every one performs in his own employment
or business--and not to divine work. Now the work of
healing or preserving is not proper to man, but to
God. So again, in the law it says, "Thou shalt
not do any manner of work in it,"(12) except what
is to be done for any soul,(13) that is to say, in
the matter of delivering the soul;(14) because what
is God's work may be done by human agency for the salvation
of the soul. By God, however, would that be done which
the man Christ was to do, for He was likewise God.(15)
Wishing, therefore, to initiate them into this meaning
of the law by the restoration of the withered hand,
He requires, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath-days
to do good, or not? to save life, or to destroy it?"(16)
In order that He might, whilst allowing that amount
of work which He was about to perform for a soul,(17)
remind them what works the law of the Sabbath forbade--even
human works; and what it enjoined--even divine works,
which might be done for the benefit of any soul,(18)
He was called "Lord of the Sabbath,"(19)
because He maintained(20) the Sabbath as His own institution.
Now, even if He had annulled the Sabbath, He would
have had the right to do so,(21) as being its Lord,
(and) still more as He who instituted it. But He did
not utterly destroy it, although its Lord, in order
that it might henceforth be plain that the Sabbath
was not broken(22) by the Creator, even at the time
when the ark was carried around Jericho. For that was
really(23) God's work, which He commanded Himself,
and which He had ordered for the sake of the lives
of His servants when exposed to the perils of war.
Now, although He has in a certain place expressed an
aversion of Sabbaths, by calling them your Sabbaths,(24)
reckoning them as men's Sabbaths, not His own, because
they were celebrated without the fear of God by a people
full of iniquities, and loving God "with the lip,
not the heart,"(25) He has yet put His own Sabbaths
(those, that is, which were kept according to His prescription)
in a different position; for by the same prophet, in
a later passage,(26) He declared them to be "true,
and delightful, and inviolable." Thus Christ did
not at all rescind the Sabbath: He kept the law thereof,
and both in the former case did a work which was beneficial
to the life of His disciples, for He indulged them
with the relief of food when they were hungry, and
in the present instance cured the withered hand; in
each case in-

364

timating by facts, "I came not to destroy, the
law, but to fulfil it,"(1) although Marcion has
gagged(2) His mouth by this word.(3) For even in the
case before us He fulfilled the law, while interpreting
its condition; moreover, He exhibits in a dear light
the different kinds of work, while doing what the law
excepts from the sacredness of the Sabbath(4) and while
imparting to the Sabbath-day itself, which from the
beginning had been consecrated by the benediction of
the Father, an additional sanctity by His own beneficent
action. For He furnished to this day divine safeguards,(5)--a
course which(6) His adversary would have pursued for
some other days, to avoid honouring the Creator's Sabbath,
and restoring to the Sabbath the works which were proper
for it. Since, in like manner, the prophet Elisha on
this day restored to life the dead son of the Shunammite
woman,(7) you see, O Pharisee, and you too, O Marcion,
how that it was proffer employment for the Creator's
Sabbaths of old(8) to do good, to save life, not to
destroy it; how that Christ introduced nothing new,
which was not after the example,(9) the gentleness,
the mercy, and the prediction also of the Creator.
For in this very example He fulfils(10) the prophetic
announcement of a specific healing: "The weak
hands are strengthened," as were also "the
feeble knees"(11)in the sick of the palsy.

CHAP. XIII.--CHRIST'S CONNECTION WITH THE CREATOR SHOWN.
MANY QUOTATIONS OUT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETICALLY
BEAR ON CERTAIN EVENTS OF THE LIFE OF JESUS--SUCH AS
HIS ASCENT TO PRAYING ON THE MOUNTAIN; HIS SELECTION
OF TWELVE APOSTLES; HIS CHANGING SIMON'S NAME TO PETER,
AND GENTILES FROM TYRE AND SIDON RESORTING TO HIM.

Surely to Sion He brings good tidings, and to Jerusalem
peace and all blessings; He goes up into a mountain,
and there spends a night in prayer,(12) and He is indeed
heard by the Father. Accordingly turn over the prophets,
and learn therefrom His entire course.(13) "Into
the high mountain," says Isaiah, "get Thee
up, who bringest good tidings to Sion;

lift up Thy voice with strength, who bringest good tidings
to Jerusalem."(14) "They were mightily(15)
astonished at His doctrine; for He was teaching as
one who had power."(16) And again: "Therefore,
my people shall know my name in that day." What
name does the prophet mean, but Christ's? "That
I am He that doth speak--even I."(17) For it was
He who used to speak in the prophets--the Word, the
Creator's Son. "I am present, while it is the
hour, upon the mountains, as one that bringeth glad
tidings of peace, as one that publisheth good tidings
of good."(18) So one of the twelve (minor prophets),
Naburn: "For behold upon the mountain the swift
feet of Him that bringeth glad tidings of peace."(19)
Moreover, concerning the voice of His prayer to the
Father by night, the psalm manifestly says: "O
my God, I will cry in the day-time, and Thou shalt
hear; and in the night season, and it shall not be
in vain to me."(20) in another passage touching
the same voice and place, the psalm says: "I cried
unto the Lord with my voice, and He heard me out of
His holy mountain."(21) You have a representation
of the name; you have the action of the Evangelizer;
you have a mountain for the site; and the night as
the time; and the sound of a voice; and the audience
of the Father: you have, (in short,) the Christ of
the prophets. But why was it that He chose twelve apostles,(22)
and not some other number? In truth,(23) I might from
this very point conclude(24) of my Christ, that He
was foretold not only by the words of prophets, but
by the indications of facts. For of this number I find
figurative hints up and down the Creator's dispensation(25)
in the twelve springs of Elfin;(26) in the twelve gems
of Aaron's priestly vestment;(27) and in the twelve
stones appointed by Joshua to be taken out of the Jordan,
and set up for the ark of the covenant. Now, the same
number of apostles was thus portended, as if they were
to be fountains and rivers which should water the Gentile
world, which was formerly dry and destitute of knowledge
(as He says by Isaiah: "I will put streams in
the unwatered ground"(28)); as if they were to
be gems to shed lustre upon the church's sacred

365

robe, which Christ, the High Priest of the Father, puts
on; as if, also, they were to be stones massive in
their faith, which the true Joshua took out of the
layer of the Jordan, and placed in the sanctuary of
His covenant. What equally good defence of such a number
has Marcion's Christ to show? It is impossible that
anything can be shown to have been done by him unconnectedly,(1)
which cannot be shown to have been done by my Christ
in connection (with preceding types).(2) To him will
appertain the event(3) in whom is discovered the preparation
for the same.(4) Again, He changes the name of Simon
to peter,(5) inasmuch as the Creator also altered the
names of Abram, and Sarai, and Oshea, by calling the
latter Joshua, and adding a syllable to each of the
former. But why Peter? If it was because of the vigour
of his faith, there were many solid materials which
might lend a name from their strength. Was it because
Christ was both a rock and a stone? For we read of
His being placed "for a stone of stumbling and
for a rock of offence."(6) I omit the rest of
the passage.(7) Therefore He would fain(8) impart to
the dearest of His disciples a name which was suggested
by one of His own especial designations in figure;
because it was, I suppose, more peculiarly fit than
a name which might have been derived from no figurative
description of Himself.(9) There come to Him from Tyre,
and from other districts even, a transmarine multitude.
This fact the psalm had in view: "And behold tribes
of foreign people, and Tyre, and the people of the
Ethiopians; they were there. Sion is my mother, shall
a man say; and in her was born a man" (forasmuch
as the God-man was born), and He built her by the Father's
will; that you may know how Gentiles then flocked to
Him, because He was born the God-man who was to build
the church according to the Father's will--even of
other races also.(10) So says Isaiah too: "Behold,
these come from far; and these from the north and from
the west;(11) and these from the land of the Persians."(12)
Concerning whom He says again: "Lift up thine
eyes round about, and behold, all these have gathered
themselves together."(13) And yet again:

"Thou seest these unknown and strange ones; and
thou wilt say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me
these? But who hath brought me up these? And these,
where have they been?"(14) Will such a Christ
not be (the Christ) of the prophets? And what will
be the Christ of the Marcionites? Since perversion
of truth is their pleasure, he could not be (the Christ)
of the prophets.

CHAP. XIV.--CHRIST'S SERMON ON THE MOUNT. IN MANNER
AND CONTENTS IT SO RESEMBLES THE CREATOR'S DISPENSATIONAL
WORDS AND DEEDS. IT SUGGESTS THEREFORE THE CONCLUSION
THAT JESUS IS THE CREATOR'S CHRIST. THE BEATITUDES.

I now come to those ordinary precepts of His, by
means of which He adapts the peculiarity(15) of His
doctrine to what I may call His official proclamation
as the Christ.(16) "Blessed are the needy"
(for no less than this is required for interpreting
the word in the Greek,(17) "because theirs is
the kingdom of heaven."(18) Now this very fact,
that He begins with beatitudes, is characteristic of
the Creator, who used no other voice than that of blessing
either in the first fiat or the final dedication of
the universe: for "my heart," says He, "hath
indited a very good word."(19) This will be that
"very good word" of blessing which is admitted
to be the initiating principle of the New Testament,
after the example of the Old. What is there, then,
to wonder at, if He entered on His ministry with the
very attributes(20) of the Creator, who ever in language
of the same sort loved, consoled, protected, and avenged
the beggar, and the poor, and the humble, and the widow,
and the orphan? So that you may believe this private
bounty as it were of Christ to be a rivulet streaming
from the springs of salvation. Indeed, I hardly know
whiCh way to turn amidst so vast a wealth of good words
like these; as if I were in a forest, or a meadow,
or an orchard of apples. I must therefore look out
for such matter as chance may present to me.(21)
In the psalm he exclaims: "Defend the fatherless
and the needy; do justice to the humble and the poor;
deliver the poor, and rid the needy out of the hand
of the wicked."(22)

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Similarly in the seventy-first Psalm: "In righteousness
shall He judge the needy amongst the people, and shall
save the children of the poor."(1) And in the
following words he says of Christ: "All nations
shall serve Him."(2) Now David only reigned over
the Jewish nation, so that nobody can suppose that
this was spoken of David; whereas He had taken upon
Himself the condition of the poor, and such as were
oppressed with want, "Because He should deliver
the needy out of the hand of the mighty man; He shall
spare the needy and the poor, and shall deliver the
souls of the poor. From usury and injustice shall He
redeem their souls, and in His sight shall their name
be honoured."(3) Again: "The wicked shall
be turned into hell, even all the nations that forget
God; because the needy shall not alway be forgotten;
the endurance of the poor shall not perish for ever."(4)
Again: "Who is like unto the Lord our God, who
dwelleth on high, and yet looketh on the humble things
that are in heaven and on earth!--who raiseth up the
needy from off the ground, and out of the dunghill
exalteth the poor; that He may set him with the princes
of His people,"(5) that is, in His own kingdom.
And likewise earlier, in the book of Kings,(6) Hannah
the mother of Samuel gives glory to God in these words:
"He raiseth the poor man from the ground, and
the beggar, that He may set him amongst the princes
of His people (that is, in His own kingdom), and on
thrones of glory" (even royal ones).(7) And by
Isaiah how He inveighs against the oppressors of the
needy "What mean ye that ye set fire to my vineyard,
and that the spoil of the poor is in your houses? Wherefore
do ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the face
of the needy?"(8) And again: "Woe unto them
that decree unrighteous decrees; for in their decrees
they decree wickedness, turning aside the needy from
judgment, and taking away their rights from the poor
of my people."(9) These righteous judgments He
requires for the fatherless also, and the widows, as
well as for consolation(10) to the very needy themselves.
"Do justice to the fatherless, and deal justly
with the widow; and come, let us be reconciled,(11)
saith the Lord."(12) To him, for whom in every

stage of lowliness there is provided so much of the
Creator's compassionate regard, shall be given that
kingdom also which is promised by Christ, to whose
merciful compassion belong, and for a great while have
belonged,(13) those to whom the promise is made. For
even if you suppose that the promises of the Creator
were earthly, but that Christ's are heavenly, it is
quite clear that heaven has been as yet the property
of no other God whatever, than Him who owns the earth
also; quite clear that the Creator has given even the
lesser promises (of earthly blessing), in order that
I may more readily believe Him concerning His greater
promises (of heavenly blessings) also, than (Marcion's
god), who has never given proof of his liberality by
any preceding bestowal of minor blessings. "Blessed
are they that hunger, for they shall be filled."(14)
I might connect this clause with the former one, because
none but the poor and needy suffer hunger, if the Creator
had not specially designed that the promise of a similar
blessing should serve as a preparation for the gospel,
that so men might know it to be His.(15) For thus does
He say, by Isaiah, concerning those whom He was about
to call from the ends of the earth--that is, the Gentiles:
"Behold, they shall come swiftly with speed:"(16)
swiftly, because hastening towards the fulness of the
times; with speed, because unclogged by the weights
of the ancient law. They shall neither hunger nor thirst.
Therefore they shall be filled,--a promise which is
made to none but those who hunger and thirst. And again
He says: "Behold, my servants shall be filled,
but ye shall be hungry; behold, my servants shall drink,
but ye shall be thirsty."(17) As for these oppositions,
we shall see whether they are not premonitors of Christ.(18)
Meanwhile the promise of fulness to the hungry is a
provision of God the Creator. "Blessed are they
that weep, for they shall laugh."(19) Turn again
to the passage of Isaiah: "Behold, my servants
shall exult with joy, but ye shall be ashamed; behold,
my servants shall be glad, but ye shall cry for sorrow
of heart."(20) And recognise these oppositions
also in the dispensation of Christ. Surely gladness
and joyous exultation is promised to those who are
in an opposite condition--to the sorrowful, and sad,
and anxious. Just as it is said in the 125th Psalm:
"They who sow in tears shall reap in joy."(21)
Moreover, laughter is as much an

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accessory to the exulting and glad, as weeping is to
the sorrowful and grieving. Therefore the Creator,
in foretelling matters for laughter and tears, was
the first who said that those who mourned should laugh.
Accordingly, He who began (His course) with consolation
for the poor, and the humble, and the hungry, and the
weeping, was at once eager(1) to represent Himself
as Him whom He had pointed out by the mouth of Isaiah:
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He
hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the poor."(2)
"Blessed are the needy, because theirs is the
kingdom of heaven."(3) "He hath sent me to
bind up the broken-hearted."(4) "Blessed
are they that hunger, for they shall be filled."(5)
"To comfort all that mourn."(6) "Blessed
are they that weep, for they shall laugh."(7)
"To give unto them that mourn in Sion, beauty
(or glory) for ashes, and the oil of joy for mourning,
and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness."(8)
Now since Christ, as soon as He entered on His course,(9)
fulfilled such a ministration as this, He is either,
Himself, He who predicted His own coming to do all
this; or else if he is not yet come who predicted this,
the charge to Marcion's Christ must be a ridiculous
one (although I should perhaps add a necessary(10)
one), which bade him say, "Blessed shall ye be,
when men shall bate you, and shall reproach you, and
shall cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's
sake."(11) In this declaration there is, no doubt,
an exhortation to patience. Well, what did the Creator
say otherwise by Isaiah? "Fear ye not the reproach
of men, nor be diminished by their contempt."(12)
What reproach? what contempt? That which was to be
incurred for the sake of the Son of man. What Son of
man? He who (is come) according to the Creator's will.
Whence shall we get our proof? From the very cutting
off, which was predicted against Him; as when He says
by Isaiah to the Jews, who were the instigators of
hatred against Him: "Because of you, my name is
blasphemed amongst the Gentiles;"(13) and in another
passage: "Lay the penalty on(14) Him who surrenders(15)
His own life, who is held in contempt by the Gentiles,
whether servants or magistrates."(16) Now, since
hatred was predicted against that Son of man who has
His mission from the Creator, whilst the Gospel testifies
that the name of Christians, as derived from Christ,
was to be hated for the Son of man's sake, because
He is Christ, it determines the point that that was
the Son of man in the matter of hatred who came according
to the Creator's purpose, and against whom the hatred
was predicted. And even if He had not yet come, the
hatred of His name which exists at the present day
could not in any case have possibly preceded Him who
was to bear the name.(17) But He has both suffered
the penalty(18) in out presence, and surrendered His
life, laying it down for our sakes, and is held in
contempt by the Gentiles. And He who was born (into
the world) will be that very Son of man on whose account
our name also is rejected.

CHAP. XV.--SERMON ON THE MOUNT CONTINUED. ITS WOES IN
STRICT AGREEMENT WITH THE CREATOR'S DISPOSITION. MANY
QUOTATIONS OUT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN PROOF OF THIS.

"In the like manner," says He,(19) "did
their fathers unto the prophets." What a turncoat(20)
is Marcion's Christ! Now the destroyer, now the advocate
of the prophets! He destroyed them as their rival,
by converting their disciples; he took up their cause
as their friend, by stigmatizing(21) their persecutors.
But,(22) in as far as the defence of the prophets could
not be consistent in the Christ of Marcion, who came
to destroy them; in so far is it becoming to the Creator's
Christ that He should stigmatize those who persecuted
the prophets, for He in all things accomplished their
predictions. Again, it is more characteristic of the
Creator to upbraid sons with their fathers' sins, than
it is of that god who chastizes no man for even his
own misdeeds. But you will say, He cannot be regarded
as defending the prophets simply because He wished
to affirm the iniquity of the Jews for their impious
dealings with their own prophets. Well, then, in this
case,(23) no sin ought to have been charged against
the Jews: they were rather deserving of praise and
approbation when they maltreated(24 those whom

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the absolutely good god of Marcion, after so long a
time, bestirred himself(2) to destroy. I suppose, however,
that by this time he bad ceased to be the absolutely
good god;(2) he had now sojourned a considerable while
even with the Creator, and was no longer (like) the
god of Epicurus(3) purely and simply. For see how he
condescends(4) to curse, and proves himself capable
of taking offence and feeling anger! He actually pronounces
a woe! But a doubt is raised against us as to the import
of this word, as if it carried with it less the sense
of a curse than of an admonition. Where, however, is
the difference, since even an admonition is not given
without the sting of a threat, especially when it is
embittered with a woe? Moreover, both admonition and
threatening will be the resources of him s who knows
how to feel angry, For no one will forbid the doing
of a thing with an admonition or a threat, except him
who will inflict punishment for the doing of it. No
one would inflict punishment, except him who was susceptible
of anger. Others, again, admit that the word implies
a curse; but they will have it that Christ pronounced
the woe, not as if it were His own genuine feeling,
but because the woe is from the Creator, and He wanted
to set forth to them the severity of the Creator in
order that He might the more commend His own long-suffering(6)
in His beatitudes Just as if it were not competent
to the Creator, in the pre-eminence of both His attributes
as the good God and Judge, that, as He had made clemency(7)
the preamble of His benediction so He should place
severity in the sequel of His curses; thus fully developing
His discipline in both directions, both in following
out the blessing and in providing against the curse.(8)
He had already said of old, "Behold, I have set
before you blessing and cursing."(9) Which statement
was really a presage of(10) this temper of the gospel.
Besides, what sort of being is that who, to insinuate
a belief in his own goodness, invidiously contrasted(11)
with it the Creator's severity? Of little worth is
the recommendation which has for its prop the defamation
of another. And yet by thus setting forth the severity
of the Creator, he, in fact, affirmed Him to be an
object of fear.(12) Now if He be an object of fear,
He is of course more worthy of being

obeyed than slighted; and thus Marcion's Christ begins
to teach favourably to the Creator's interests.(13)
Then, on the admission above mentioned, since the woe
which has regard to the rich is the Creator's, it follows
that it is not Christ, but the Creator, who is angry
with the rich; while Christ approves of(14) the incentives
of the rich(15)--I mean, their pride, their pomp,(16)
their love of the world, and their contempt of God,
owing to which they deserve the woe of the Creator.
But how happens it that the reprobation of the rich
does not proceed from the same Gad who had just before
expressed approbation of the poor? There is nobody
but reprobates the opposite of that which he has approved.
If, therefore, there be imputed to the Creator the
woe pronounced against the rich, there must be claimed
for Him also the promise of the blessing upon the poor;
and thus the entire work of the Creator devolves on
Christ.--If to Marcion's god there be ascribed the
blessing of the poor, he must also have imputed to
him the malediction of the rich; and thus will he become
the Creator's equal,(17) both good and judicial; nor
will there be left any room for that distinction whereby
two gods are made; and when this distinction is removed,
there will remain the verity which pronounces the Creator
to be the one only God. Since, therefore, "woe"
is a word indicative of malediction, or of some unusually
austere(18) exclamation; and since it is by Christ
uttered against the rich, I shall have to show that
the Creator is also a despiser(19) of the rich, as
I have shown Him to be the defender(20) of the poor,
in order that I may prove Christ to be on the Creator's
side in this matter, even when He enriched Solomon.(21)
But with respect to this man, since, when a choice
was left to him, he preferred asking for what he knew
to be well-pleasing to God--even wisdom--he further
merited the attainment of the riches, which he did
not prefer. The endowing of a man indeed with riches,
is not an incongruity to God, for by the help of riches
even rich men are comforted and assisted; moreover,
by them many a work of justice and charity is carried
out. But yet there are serious faults(22) which accompany
riches; and it is because of these that woes are denounced
on the rich, even in the Gospel. "Ye have received,"
says He, "your consolation;"(23) that is,
of course, from

369

their riches, in the pomps and vanities of the world
which these purchase for them. Accordingly, in Deuteronomy,
Moses says: "Lest, when thou hast eaten and art
full, and hast built goodly houses, and when thy herds
and thy flocks multiply, as well as thy silver and
thy gold, thine heart be then lifted up, and thou forget
the Lord thy God."(1) in similar terms, when king
Hezekiah became proud of his treasures, and gloried
in them rather than in God before those who had come
on an embassy from Babylon,(2) (the Creator) breaks
forth(3) against him by the mouth of Isaiah: "Behold,
the days come when all that is in thine house, and
that which thy fathers have laid up in store, shall
be carried to Babylon."(4) So by Jeremiah likewise
did He say: "Let not the rich man glory in his
riches but let him that glorieth even glory in the
Lord."(5) Similarly against the daughters of Sion
does He inveigh by Isaiah, when they were haughty through
their pomp and the abundance of their riches,(6) just
as in another passage He utters His threats against
the proud and noble: "Hell hath enlarged herself,
and opened her mouth, and down to it shall descend
the illustrious, and the great, and the rich (this
shall be Christ's 'woe to the rich'); and man(7) shall
be humbled," even he that exalts himself with
riches; "and the mighty man(8) shall be dishonoured,"
even he who is mighty from his wealth.(9) Concerning
whom He says again: "Behold, the Lord of hosts
shall confound the pompous together with their strength:
those that are lifted up shall be hewn down, and such
as are lofty shall fall by the sword."(10) And
who are these but the rich? Because they have indeed
received their consolation, glory, and honour and a
lofty position from their wealth. In Ps. xlviii. He
also turns off our care from these and says: "Be
not thou afraid when one is made rich, and when his
glory is increased: for when he shall die, he shall
carry nothing away; nor shall his glory descend along
with him."(11) So also in Ps. lxi.: "Do not
desire riches; and if they do yield you their lustre,(12)
do not set your heart upon them."(13) Lastly,
this very same woe is pronounced of old by Amos against
the rich, who also abounded in delights. "Woe
unto them," says he, "who

sleep upon beds of ivory, and deliciously stretch themselves
upon their couches; who eat the kids from the flocks
of the goats, and sucking calves from the flocks of
the heifers, while they chant to the sound of the viol;
as if they thought they should continue long, and were
not fleeting; who drink their refined wines, and anoint
themselves with the costliest ointments."(14)
Therefore, even if I could do nothing else than show
that the Creator dissuades men from riches, without
at the same time first condemning the rich, in the
very same terms in which Christ also did, no one could
doubt that, from the same authority, there was added
a commination against the rich in that woe of Christ,
from whom also had first proceeded the dissuasion against
the material sin of these persons, that is, their riches.
For such commination is the necessary sequel to such
a dissuasive. He inflicts a woe also on "the full,
because they shall hunger; on those too which laugh
now,, because they shall mourn."(15) To these
will correspond these opposites which occur, as we
have seen above, in the benedictions of the Creator:
"Behold, my servants shall be full, but ye shall
be hungry "--even because ye have been filled;
"behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall
be ashamed"(16)--even ye who shall mourn, who
now are laughing. For as it is written in the psalm,
"They who sow in tears shall reap in joy,"(17)
so does it run in the Gospel: They who sow in laughter,
that is, in joy, shall reap in tears. These principles
did the Creator lay down of old; and Christ has renewed
them, by simply bringing them into prominent view,(18)
not by making any change in them. "Woe unto you,
when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their
fathers to the false prophets."(19) With equal
stress does the Creator, by His prophet Isaiah, censure
those who seek after human flattery and praise: "O
my people, they who call you happy mislead you, and
disturb the paths of your feet."(20) In another
passage He forbids all implicit trust in man, and likewise
in the applause of man; as by the prophet Jeremiah:
"Cursed be the man that trusteth in man."(21)
Whereas in Ps. cxvii. it is said: "It is better
to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man;
it is better to trust in the Lord than to place hope
in princes."(22) Thus everything which is caught
at by men is adjured by the Creator, down to their
good

370

words.(1) It is as much His property to condemn the
praise and flattering words bestowed on the false prophets
by their fathers, as to condemn their vexatious and
persecuting treatment of the (true) prophets. As the
injuries suffered by the prophets could not be imputed(2)
to their own God, so the applause bestowed on the false
prophets could not have been displeasing to any other
god but the God of the true prophets.

CHAP. XVI.--THE PRECEPT OF LOVING ONE'S ENEMIES. IT
IS AS MUCH TAUGHT IN THE CREATOR'S SCRIPTURES OF THE
OLD TESTAMENT AS IN CHRIST'S SERMON. THE LEX TALIONIS
OF MOSES ADMIRABLY EXPLAINED IN CONSISTENCY WITH THE
KINDNESS AND LOVE WHICH JESUS CHRIST CAME TO PROCLAIM
AND ENFORCE IN BEHALF OF THE CREATOR. SUNDRY PRECEPTS
OF CHARITY EXPLAINED.

"But I say unto you which hear" (displaying
here that old injunction, of the Creator: "Speak
to the ears of those who lend them to you"(3)),
"Love your enemies, and bless(4) those which hate
you, and pray for them which calumniate you."(5)
These commands the Creator included in one precept
by His prophet Isaiah: "Say, Ye are our brethren,
to those who hate you."(6) For if they who are
our enemies, and hate us, and speak evil of us, and
calumniate us, are to be called our brethren, surely
He did in effect bid us bless them that hate us, and
pray for them who calumniate us, when He instructed
us to reckon them as brethren. Well, but Christ plainly
teaches a new kind of patience,(7) when He actually
prohibits the reprisals which the Creator permitted
in requiring "an eye for an eye,(8) and a tooth
for a tooth,"(9) and bids us, on the contrary,
"to him who smiteth us on the one cheek, to offer
the other also, and to give up our coat to him that
taketh away our cloak."(10) No doubt these are
supplementary additions by Christ, but they are quite
in keeping with the teaching of the Creator. And therefore
this question must at once be determined,(11) Whether
the discipline of patience be enjoined by(12) the Creator?
When by Zechariah He commanded, "Let none of you
imagine evil against his brother,"(13) He did
not expressly include his neighbour; but then in another
passage He says, "Let none of you imagine evil
in your hearts against his neighbour."(14) He
who counselled that an injury should be forgotten,
was still more likely to counsel the patient endurance
of it. But then, when He said, "Vengeance is mine,
and I will repay,"(15) He thereby teaches that
patience calmly waits for the infliction of vengeance.
Therefore, inasmuch as it is incredible(16) that the
same (God) should seem to require "a tooth for
a tooth and an eye for an eye," in return for
an injury, who forbids not only all reprisals, but
even a revengeful thought or recollection of an injury,
in so far does it become plain to us in what sense
He required "an eye for an eye and a tooth for
a tooth,"--not, indeed, for the purpose of permitting
the repetition of the injury by retaliating it, which
it virtually prohibited when it forbade vengeance;
but for the purpose of restraining the injury in the
first instance, which it had forbidden on pain of retaliation
or reciprocity;(17) so that every man, in view of the
permission to inflict a second (or retaliatory) injury,
might abstain from the commission of the first (or
provocative) wrong. For He knows how much more easy
it is to repress violence by the prospect of retaliation,
than by the promise of (indefinite) vengeance. Both
results, however, it was necessary to provide, in consideration
of the nature and the faith of men, that the man who
believed in God might expect vengeance from God, while
he who had no faith (to restrain him) might fear the
laws which prescribed retaliation.(18) This purpose(19)
of the law, which it was difficult to understand, Christ,
as the Lord of the Sabbath and of the law, and of all
the dispensations of the Father, both revealed and
made intelligible,(20) when He commanded that "the
other cheek should be offered (to the smiter),"
in order that He might the more effectually extinguish
all reprisals of an injury, which the law had wished
to prevent by the method of retaliation, (and) which
most certainly revelation(21) had manifestly restricted,
both by prohibiting the memory of the wrong, and referring
the vengeance thereof to God. Thus, whatever (new

371

provision) Christ introduced, He did it not in opposition
to the law, but rather in furtherance of it, without
at all impairing the prescription(1) of the Creator.
If, therefore,(2) one looks carefully(3) into the very
grounds for which patience is enjoined (and trial to
such a full and complete extent), one finds that it
cannot stand if it is not the precept of the Creator,
who promises vengeance, who presents Himself as the
judge (in the case). If it were not so,(4)--if so vast
a weight of patience--which is to refrain from giving
blow for blow; which is to offer the other cheek; which
is not only not to return railing for railing, but
contrariwise blessing; and which, so far from keeping
the coat, is to give up the cloak also--is laid upon
me by one who means not to help me,--(then all I can
say is,) he has taught me patience to no purpose,(5)
because he shows me no reward to his precept--I mean
no fruit of such patience. There is revenge which he
ought to have permitted me to take, if he meant not
to inflict it himself; if he did not give me that permission,
then he should himself have inflicted it;(6) since
it is for the interest of discipline itself that an
injury should be avenged. For by the fear of vengeance
all iniquity is curbed. But if licence is allowed to
it without discrimination,(7) it will get the mastery--it
will put out (a man's) both eyes; it will knock out(8)
every tooth in the safety of its impunity. This, however,
is (the principle) of your good and simply beneficent
god--to do a wrong to patience, to open the door to
violence, to leave the righteous undefended, and the
wicked unrestrained! "Give to every one that asketh
of thee"(9)--to the indigent of course, or rather
to the indigent more especially, although to the affluent
likewise. But in order that no man may be indigent,
you have in Deuteronomy a provision commanded by the
Creator to the creditor.(10) "There shall not
be in thine hand an indigent man; so that the Lord
thy God shall bless thee with blessings,"(11)--thee
meaning the creditor to whom it was owing that the
man was not indigent. But more than this. To one who
does not ask, He bids a gift to be given. "Let
there be, not," He says, "a poor man in thine
hand;" in other words, see that there be not,
so far as thy will can prevent;(12) by which command,
too, He

all the more strongly by inference requires(13) men
to give to him that asks, as in the following words
also: "If there be among you a poor man of thy
brethren, thou shalt not turn away thine heart, nor
shut thine hand from thy poor brother. But thou shalt
open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend
him as much as he wanteth,"(14) Loans are not
usually given, except to such as ask for them. On this
subject of lending,(15) however, more hereafter.(16)
Now, should any one wish to argue that the Creator's
precepts extended only to a man's brethren, but Christ's
to all that ask, so as to make the latter a new and
different precept, (I have to reply) that one rule
only can be made out of those principles, which show
the law of the Creator to be repeated in Christ.(17)
For that is not a different thing which Christ enjoined
to be done towards all men, from that which the Creator
prescribed in favour of a man's brethren. For although
that is a greater charity, which is shown to strangers,
it is yet not preferable to that(18) which was previously
due to one's neighbours. For what man will be able
to bestow the love (which proceeds from knowledge of
character,(19) upon strangers? Since, however, the
second step(20) in charity is towards strangers, while
the first is towards one's neighbours, the second step
will belong to him to whom the first also belongs,
more fitly than the second will belong to him who owned
no first.(21) Accordingly, the Creator, when following
the course of nature, taught in the first instance
kindness to neighbours,(22) intending afterwards to
enjoin it towards strangers; and when following the
method of His dispensation, He limited charity first
to the Jews, but afterwards extended it to the whole
race of mankind. So long, therefore, as the mystery
of His government(23) was confined to Israel, He properly
commanded that pity should be shown only to a man's
brethren; but when Christ had given to Him "the
Gentiles for His heritage, and the ends of the earth
for His possession," then began to be accomplished
what was said by Hosea: "Ye are not my people,
who were my people; ye have not obtained mercy, who

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once obtained mercy"(1)--that is, the (Jewish)
nation. Thenceforth Christ extended to all men the
law of His Father's compassion, excepting none from
His mercy, as He omitted none in His invitation. So
that, whatever was the ampler scope of His teaching,
He received it all in His heritage of the nations.
"And as ye would that men should do to you, do
ye also to them likewise."(2) In this command
is no doubt implied its counterpart: "And as ye
would not that men should do to you, so should ye also
not do to them likewise." Now, if this were the
teaching of the new and previously unknown and not
yet fully proclaimed deity, who had favoured me with
no instruction beforehand, whereby I might first learn
what I ought to choose or to refuse for myself, and
to do to others what I would wish done to myself, not
doing to them what I should be unwilling to have done
to myself, it would certainly be nothing else than
the chance-medley of my own sentiments(3) which he
would have left to me, binding me to no proper rule
of wish or action, in order that I might do to others
what I would like for myself, or refrain from doing
to others what I should dislike to have done to myself.
For he has not, in fact, defined what I ought to wish
or not to wish for myself as well as for others, so
that I shape my conduct(4) according to the law of
my own will, and have it in my power(5) not to render(6)
to another what I would like to have rendered to myself--love,
obedience, consolation, protection, and such like blessings;
and in like manner to do to another what I should be
unwilling to have done to myself--violence, wrong,
insult, deceit, and evils of like sort. Indeed, the
heathen who have not been instructed by God act on
this incongruous liberty of the will and the conduct.(7)
For although good and evil are severally known by nature,
yet life is not thereby spent(8) under the discipline
of God, which alone at last teaches men the proper
liberty of their will and action in faith, as in the
fear of God. The god of Marcion, therefore, although
specially revealed, was, in spite of his revelation,
unable to publish any summary of the precept in question,
which had hitherto been so confined,(9) and obscure,
and dark, and admitting of no ready interpretation,
except according to my own arbitrary thought,(10) because
he had provided no previous discrimination in the matter
of such a precept. This, however, was not the case
with my God, for He always and everywhere enjoined
that the poor, and the orphan, and the widow should
be protected, assisted, refreshed; thus by Isaiah He
says: "Deal thy bread to the hungry, and them
that are houseless bring into thine house; when thou
seest the naked, cover him."(12) By Ezekiel also
He thus describes the just man: "His bread will
he give to the hungry, and the naked will he cover
with a garment."(13) That teaching was even then
a sufficient inducement to me to do to others what
I would that they should do unto me. Accordingly, when
He uttered such denunciations as, "Thou shalt
do no murder; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou
shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness,"
He taught me to refrain from doing to others what I
should be unwilling to have done to myself; and therefore
the precept developed in the Gospel will belong to
Him alone, who anciently drew it up, and gave it distinctive
point, and arranged it after the decision of His own
teaching, and has now reduced it, suitably to its importance,(15)
to a compendious formula, because (as it was predicted
in another passage) the Lord--that is, Christ"
was to make (or utter) a concise word on earth."(16)

CHAP. XVII.--CONCERNING LOANS. PROHIBITION OF USURY
AND THE USURIOUS SPIRIT. THE LAW PREPARATORY TO THE
GOSPEL IN ITS PROVISIONS; SO IN THE PRESENT INSTANCE.
ON REPRISALS. CHRIST'S TEACHING THROUGHOUT PROVES HIM
TO BE SENT BY THE CREATOR.

And now, on the subject of a loan, when He asks,
"And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive,
what thank have ye?"(17) compare with this the
following words of Ezekiel, in which He says of the
before-mentioned just man, "He hath not given
his money upon usury, nor will he take any increase"(18)--meaning
the redundance of interest,(19) which is usury. The
first step was to eradicate the fruit of the money
lent,(20) the more easily to accustom a man to the
loss, should it happen, of the money itself, the in-

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terest of which he had learnt to lose. Now this, we
affirm, was the function of the law as preparatory
to the gospel. It was engaged in forming the faith
of such as would learn,(1) by gradual stages, for the
perfect light of the Christian discipline, through
the best precepts of which it was capable,(2) inculcating
a benevolence which as yet expressed itself but falteringly.(3)
For in the passage of Ezekiel quoted above He says,
"And thou shalt restore the pledge of the loan
"(4)--to him, certainly, who is incapable of repayment,
because, as a matter of course, He would not anyhow
prescribe the restoration of a pledge to one who was
solvent. Much more clearly is it enjoined in Deuteronomy:
"Thou shalt not sleep upon his pledge; thou shalt
be sure to return to him his garment about sunset,
and he shall sleep in his own garment."(5) Clearer
still is a former passage: "Thou shalt remit every
debt which thy neighbour oweth thee; and of thy brother
thou shalt not require it, because it is called the
release of the Lord thy God."(6) Now, when He
commands that a debt be remitted to a man who shall
be unable to pay it (for it is a still stronger argument
when He forbids its being asked for from a man who
is even able to repay it), what else does He teach
than that we should lend to those of whom we cannot
receive again, inasmuch as He has imposed so great
a loss on lending? "And ye shall be the children
of God."(7) What can be more shameless, than for
him to be making us his children, who has not permitted
us to make children for ourselves by forbidding marriage?(8)
How does he propose to invest his followers with a
name which he has already erased? I cannot be the son
of a eunuch Especially when I have for my Father the
same great Being whom the universe claims for its!
For is not the Founder of the universe as much a Father,
even of all men, as (Marcion's) castrated deity,(9)
who is the maker of no existing thing? Even if the
Creator had not united male and female, and if He had
not allowed any living creature whatever to have children,
I yet had this relation to Him(10) before Paradise,
before the fall, before the expulsion, before the two
became one.(11)

I became His son a second time,(12) as soon as He fashioned
me(13) with His hands, and gave me motion with His
inbreathing. Now again He names me His son, not begetting
me into natural life, but into spiritual life.(14)
"Because," says He, "He is kind unto
the unthankful and to the evil."(15) Well done,(16)
Marcion! how cleverly have you withdrawn from Him the
showers and the sunshine, that He might not seem to
be a Creator! But who is this kind being(17) which
hitherto has not been even known? How can he be kind
who had previously shown no evidences of such a kindness
as this, which consists of the loan to us of sunshine
and rain?--who is not destined to receive from the
human race (the homage due to that) Creator,--who,
up to this very moment, in return for His vast liberality
in the gift of the elements, bears with men while they
offer to idols, more readily than Himself, the due
returns of His graciousness. But God is truly kind
even in spiritual blessings. "The utterances(18)
of the Lord are sweeter than honey and honeycombs."(19)
He then has taunted(20) men as ungrateful who deserved
to have their gratitude--even He, whose sunshine and
rain even you, O Marcion, have enjoyed, but without
gratitude! Your god, however, had no right to complain
of man's ingratitude, because he had used no means
to make them grateful. Compassion also does He teach:
"Be ye merciful," says He, "as your
Father also that had mercy upon you."(21) This
injunction will be of a piece with, "Deal thy
bread to the hungry; and if he be houseless, bring
him into thine house; and if thou seest the naked,
cover him;"(22) also with, "Judge the fatherless,
plead with the widow."(23) I recognise here that
ancient doctrine of Him who "prefers mercy to
sacrifice."(24) If, however, it be now some other
being which teaches mercy, on the ground of his own
mercifulness, how happens it that he has been wanting
in mercy to me for so vast an age? "Judge not,
and ye shall not be judged; condemn not, and ye shall
not be condemned; forgive, and ye shall be forgiven;
give, and it shall be given unto you: good measure,
pressed down, and running over, shall men give into
your bosom. For with the same measure that ye meas-

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ure withal, it shall be measured to you again."(1)
As it seems to me, this passage announces a retribution
proportioned to the merits. But from whom shall come
the retribution? If only from men, in that case he
teaches a merely human discipline and recompense; and
in everything we shall have to obey man: if from the
Creator, as the Judge and the Recompenser of merits,
then He compels our submission to Him, in whose hands(2)
He has placed a retribution which will be acceptable
or terrible according as every man shall have judged
or condemned, acquitted or dealt with,(3) his neighbour;
if from (Marcion's god) himself, he will then exercise
a judicial function which Marcion denies. Let the Marcionites
therefore make their choice: Will it not be just the
same inconsistency to desert the prescription of their
master, as to have Christ teaching in the interest
of men or of the Creator? But "a blind man will
lead a blind man into the ditch."(4) Some persons
believe Marcion. But "the disciple is not above
his master."(5) Apelles ought to have remembered
this--a corrector of Marcion, although his disciple.(6)
The heretic ought to take the beam out of his own eye,
and then he may convict(7) the Christian, should he
suspect a mote to be in his eye. Just as a good tree
cannot produce evil fruit, so neither can truth generate
heresy; and as a corrupt tree cannot yield good fruit,
so heresy will not produce truth. Thus, Marcion brought
nothing good out of Cerdon's evil treasure; nor Apelles
out of Marcion's.(8) For in applying to these heretics
the figurative words which Christ used of men in general,
we shall make a much more suitable interpretation of
them than if we were to deduce out of them two gods,
according to Marcion's grievous exposition.(9) I think
that I have the best reason possible for insisting
still upon the position which I have all along occupied,
that in no passage to be anywhere found has another
God been revealed by Christ. I wonder that in this
place alone Marcion's hands should have felt benumbed
in their adulterating labour.(10) But even robbers
have their qualms now and then. There is no wrong-doing
without fear, because there is none without a guilty

conscience. So long, then, were the Jews cognisant of
no other god but Him, beside whom they knew none else;
nor did they call upon any other than Him whom alone
they knew. This being the case, who will He clearly
be(11) that said, "Why tallest thou me Lord, Lord?"(12)
Will it be he who had as yet never been called on,
because never yet revealed;(13) or He who was ever
regarded as the Lord, because known from the beginning--even
the God of the Jews? Who, again, could possibly have
added, "and do not the things which I say?"
Could it have been he who was only then doing his best(14)
to teach them? Or He who from the beginning had addressed
to them His messages(15) both by the law and the prophets?
He could then upbraid them with disobedience, even
if He had no ground at any time else for His reproof.
The fact is, that He who was then imputing to them
their ancient obstinacy was none other than He who,
before the coming of Christ, had addressed to them
these words, "This people honoureth me with their
lips, but their heart standeth far off from me."(16)
Otherwise, how absurd it were that a new god, a new
Christ, the revealer of a new and so grand a religion
should denounce as obstinate and disobedient those
whom he had never had it in his power to make trial
of!

CHAP. XVIII.--CONCERNING THE CENTURION'S FAITH. THE
RAISING OF THE WIDOW'S SON. JOHN BAPTIST, AND HIS MESSAGE
TO CHRIST; AND THE WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNER. PROOFS EXTRACTED
FROM ALL OF THE RELATION OF CHRIST TO THE CREATOR.

Likewise, when extolling the centurion's faith,
how incredible a thing it is, that He should confess
that He had "found so great a faith not even in
Israel."(17) to whom Israel's faith was in no
way interesting!(18) But not from the fact (here stated
by Christ)(19) could it have been of any interest to
Him to approve and compare what was hitherto crude,
nay, I might say, hitherto naught. Why, however, might
He not have used the example of faith in another(20)
god? Because,

375

if He had done so, He would have said that no such faith
had ever had existence in Israel; but as the case stands,(1)
He intimates that He ought to have found so great a
faith in Israel, inasmuch as He had indeed come for
the purpose of finding it, being in truth the God and
Christ of Israel, and had now stigmatized(2) it, only
as one who would enforce and Uphold it. If, indeed,
He had been its antagonist,(3) He would have preferred
finding it to be such faith,(4) having come to weaken
and destroy it rather than to approve of it. He raised
also the widow's son from death.(5) This was not a
strange miracle.(6) The Creator's prophets had wrought
such; then why not His Son much rather? Now, so evidently
had the Lord Christ introduced no other god for the
working of so momentous a miracle as this, that all
who were present gave glory to the Creator, saying:
"A great prophet is risen up among us, and God
hath visited His people."(7) What God? He, of
course, whose people they were, and from whom had
come their prophets. But if they glorified the Creator,
and Christ (on hearing them, and knowing their meaning)
refrained from correcting them even in their very act
of invoking(8) the Creator in that vast manifestation
of His glory in this raising of the dead, undoubtedly
He either announced no other God but Him, whom He thus
permitted to be honoured in His own beneficent acts
and miracles, or else how happens it that He quietly
permitted these persons to remain so long in their
error, especially as He came for the very purpose to
cure them of their error? But John is offended(9) when
he hears of the miracles of Christ, as of an alien
god.(10) Well, I on my side(11) will first explain
the reason of his offence, that I may the more easily
explode the scandal(12) of our heretic. Now, that the
very Lord Himself of all might, the Word and Spirit
of the Father,(13) was operating and preaching on earth,
it was necessary that the portion of the Holy Spirit
which, in the form

of the prophetic gift,(14) had been through John preparing
the ways of the Lord, should now depart from John,(15)
and return back again of course to the Lord, as to
its all-embracing original.(16) Therefore John, being
now an ordinary person, and only one of the many,(17)
was offended indeed as a man, but not because he expected
or thought of another Christ as teaching or doing nothing
new, for he was not even expecting such a one.(18)
Nobody will entertain doubts about any one whom (since
he knows him not to exist) he has no expectation or
thought of. Now John was quite sure that there was
no other God but the Creator, even as a Jew, especially
as a prophet.(19) Whatever doubt he felt was evidently
rather(20) entertained about Him(21) whom he knew indeed
to exist but knew not whether He were the very Christ.
With this fear, therefore, even John asks the question,
"Art thou He that should come, or look we for
another?"(22)--simply inquiring whether He was
come as He whom he was looking for. "Art thou
He that should come?" i.e. Art thou the coming
One? "or look we for another?" i.e. Is He
whom we are expecting some other than Thou, if Thou
art not He whom we expect to come? For he was supposing,(23)
as all men then thought, from the similarity of the
miraculous evidences,(24) that a prophet might possibly
have been meanwhile sent, from whom the Lord Himself,
whose coming was then expected, was different, and
to whom He was superior.(25) And there lay John's difficulty.(26)
He was in doubt whether He was actually come whom all
men were looking for; whom, moreover, they ought to
have recognised by His predicted works, even as the
Lord sent word to John, that it was by means of these
very works that He was to be recognised.(27) Now,
inasmuch as these predictions evidently related to
the Creator's Christ--as we have proved in the examination
of each of them--it was perverse enough, if he gave
himself

376

out to be not the Christ of the Creator, and rested
the proof of his statement on those very evidences
whereby he was urging his claims to be received as
the Creator's Christ. Far greater still is his perverseness
when, not being the Christ of John,(1) he yet bestows
on John his testimony, affirming him to be a prophet,
nay more, his messenger,(2) applying to him the Scripture,
"Behold, I send my messenger before thy face,
which shall prepare thy way before thee."(3) He
graciously(4) adduced the prophecy in the superior
sense of the alternative mentioned by the perplexed
John, in order that, by affirming that His own precursor
was already come in the person of John, He might quench
the doubt(5) which lurked in his question: "Art
thou He that, should come, or look we for another?"
Now that the forerunner had fulfilled his mission,
and the way of the Lord was prepared, He ought now
to be acknowledged as that (Christ) for whom the forerunner
had made ready the way. That forerunner was indeed
"greater than all of women born;"(6) but
for all that, He who was least in the kingdom of God(7)
was not subject to him;(8) as if the kingdom in which
the least person was greater than John belonged to
one God, while John, who was greater than all of women
born, belonged himself to another God. For whether
He speaks of any "least person" by reason
of his humble position, or of Himself, as being thought
to be less than John--since all were running into the
wilderness after John rather than after Christ ("What
went ye out into the wilderness to see?"(9))--the
Creator has equal right(10) to claim as His own both
John, greater than any born of women, and Christ, or
every "least person in the kingdom of heaven,"
who was destined to be greater than John in that kingdom,
although equally pertaining to the Creator, and who
would be so much greater than the prophet,(11) because
he would not have been offended at Christ, as infirmity
which then lessened the greatness John.We have already
spoken of the forgiveness(12) of sins. The behaviour
of "the woman which was a sinner," when she
covered the Lord's feet with her kisses, bathed them
with her tears, wiped them with the hairs of her head,
anointed them with ointment,(13) produced an evidence
that what she handled was not an empty phantom,(14)
but a really solid body, and that her repentance as
a sinner deserved forgiveness according to the mind
of the Creator, who is accustomed to prefer mercy to
sacrifice.(15) But even if the stimulus of her repentance
proceeded from her faith, she heard her justification
by faith through her repentance pronounced in the words,
"Thy faith hath saved thee," by Him who had
declared by Habakkuk, "The just shall live by
his faith."(16)

CHAP. XIX.--THE RICH WOMEN OF PIETY WHO FOLLOWED JESUS
CHRIST'S TEACHING BY PARABLES. THE MARCIONITE CAVIL
DERIVED FROM CHRIST'S REMARK, WHEN TOLD OF HIS MOTHER
AND HIS BRETHREN. EXPLANATION OF CHRIST'S APPARENT
REJECTION THEM.

The fact that certain rich women clave to Christ,
"which ministered unto Him of their substance,"
amongst whom was the wife of the king's steward, is
a subject of prophecy. By Isaiah the Lord called these
wealthy ladies--"Rise up, ye women that are at
ease, and hear my voice"(17)--that He might prove(18)
them first as disciples, and then as assistants and
helpers: "Daughters, hear my words in hope; this
day of the year cherish the memory of, in labour with
hope." For it was "in labour" that they
followed Him, and "with hope" did they minister
to Him. On the subject of parables, let it suffice
that it has been once for all shown that this kind
of language(19) was with equal distinctness promised
by the Creator. But there is that direct mode of His
speaking(20) to the people"Ye shall hear with
the ear, but ye shall not understand"(21)--which
now claims notice as

377

having furnished to Christ that frequent form of His
earnest instruction: "He that hath ears to hear,
let him hear."(1) Not as if Christ, actuated with
a diverse spirit, permitted a hearing which the Creator
had refused; but because the exhortation followed the
threatening. First came, "Ye shall hear with the
ear, but shall not understand;" then followed,
"He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."
For they wilfully refused to hear, although they had
ears. He, however, was teaching them that it was the
ears of the heart which were necessary; and with these
the Creator had said that they would not hear. Therefore
it is that He adds by His Christ, "Take heed how
ye hear,"(2) and hear not,--meaning, of course,
with the hearing of the heart, not of the ear. If you
only attach a proper, sense to the Creator's admonition(3)
suitable to the meaning of Him who was rousing the
people to hear by the words, "Take heed how ye
hear," it amounted to a menace to such as would
not hear. In fact,(4) that most merciful god of yours,
who judges not, neither is angry, is minatory. This
is proved even by the sentence which immediately follows:
"Whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever
hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he
seemeth to have."(5) What shall be given? The
increase of faith, or understanding, or even salvation.
What shall be taken away? That, of course, which shall
be, given. By whom shall the gift and the deprivation
be made? If by the Creator it be taken away, by Him
also shall it be given. If by Marcion's god it be given,
by Marcion's god also will it be taken away. Now, for
whatever reason He threatens the "deprivation,"
it will not be the work of a god who knows not how
to threaten, because incapable of anger. I am, moreover,
astonished when he says that "a candle is not
usually hidden,"(6) who had hidden himself--a
greater and more needful light--during so long a time;
and when he promises that "everything shall be
brought out of its secrecy and made manifest,"(7)
who hitherto has kept his god in obscurity, waiting
(I suppose) until Marcion be born. We now come to the
most strenuously-plied argument of all those who call
in question the Lord's nativity. They say that He testifies
Himself to His not having been born, when He asks,
"Who is my mother, and who are my brethren?"(8)
In this manner heretics either wrest plain and simple
words to any sense they choose by their conjectures,
or else they violently resolve by a literal interpretation
words which imply a conditional sense and are incapable
of a simple solution,(9) as in this passage. We, for
our part, say in reply, first, that it could not possibly
have been told Him that His mother and His brethren
stood without, desiring to see Him, if He had had no
mother and no brethren. They must have been known to
him who announced them, either some time previously,
or then at that very time, when they desired to see
Him, or sent Him their message. To this our first position
this answer is usually given by the other side. But
suppose they sent Him the message for the purpose of
tempting Him? Well, but the Scripture does not say
so; and inasmuch as it is usual for it to indicate
what is done in the way of temptation ("Behold,
a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted Him;"(10)again,
when inquiring about tribute, the Pharisees came to
Him, tempting Him(11)), so, when it makes no mention
of temptation, it does not admit the interpretation
of temptation. However, although I do not allow this
sense, I may as well ask, by way of a superfluous refutation,
for the reasons of the alleged temptation, To what
purpose could they have tempted Him by naming His mother
and His brethren? If it was to ascertain whether He
had been born or not--when was a question raised on
this point, which they must resolve by tempting Him
in this way? Who could doubt His having been born,
when they(12) saw Him before them a veritable man?--whom
they had heard call Himself "Son of man?"--of
whom they doubted whether He were God or Son of God,
from seeing Him, as they did, in the perfect garb of
human quality?--supposing Him rather to be a prophet,
a great one indeed,(13) but still one who had been
born as man? Even if it had been necessary that He
should thus be tried in the investigation of His birth,
surely any other proof would have better answered the
trial than that to be obtained from mentioning those
relatives which it was quite possible for Him, in spite
of His true nativity, not at that moment to have had.
For tell me now, does a mother live on contemporaneously(14)
with her sons in every case? Have all sons brothers
born for them?(15) May a man rather not have fathers
and sisters (living),

378

or even no relatives at all? But there is historical
proof(1) that at this very time(2) a census had been
taken in Judaea by Sentius Saturni-nus,(3) which might
have satisfied their inquiry respecting the family
and descent of Christ. Such a method of testing the
point had therefore no consistency whatever in it and
they "who were standing without" were really
"His mother and His brethren." It remains
for us to examine His meaning when He resorts to non-literal(4)
words, saying "Who is my mother or my brethren?"
It seems as if His language amounted to a denial of
His family and His birth; but it arose actually from
the absolute nature of the case, and the conditional
sense in which His words were to be explained.(5) He
was justly indignant, that persons so very near to
Him" stood without," while strangers were
within hanging on His words, especially as they wanted
to call Him away from the solemn work He had in hand.
He did not so much deny as disavow(6) them. And therefore,
when to the previous question, "Who is my mother,
and who are my brethren?(7) He added the answer "None
but they who hear my words and do them," He transferred
the names of blood-relationship to others, whom He
judged to be more closely related to Him by reason
of their faith. Now no one transfers a thing except
from him who possesses that which is transferred. If,
therefore, He made them "His mother and His brethren"
who were not so, how could He deny them these reIationships
who really had them? Surely only on the condition of
their deserts, and not by any disavowal of His near
relatives; teaching them by His own actual example,(8)
that "whosoever preferred father or mother or
brethren to the Word of God, was not a disciple worthy
of Him."(9) Besides,(10) His admission of His
mother and His brethren was the more express, from
the fact of His unwillingness to acknowledge them.
That He adopted others only confirmed those in their
relationship to Him whom He refused because of their
offence, and for whom He substituted the others, not
as being truer relatives, but worthier ones. Finally,
it was no great matter if He did prefer to kindred
(that) faith which it(11) did not possess.(12)

CHAP. XX.--COMPARISON OF CHRIST'S POWER OVER WINDS
AND WAVES WITH MOSES' COMMAND OF THE WATERS
OF
THE RED SEA AND THE JORDAN. CHRIST'S POWER OVER UNCLEAN
SPIRITS. THE CASE OF THE LEGION THE CURE OF THE ISSUE
OF
BLOOD. THE MOSAIC UNCLEANNESS ON THIS POINT EXPLAINED.

But "what manner of man is this? for He commandeth
even the winds and water!"(13) Of course He is
the new master and proprietor of the elements, now
that the Creator is deposed, and excluded from their
possession! Nothing of the kind. But the elements own(14)
their own Maker, just as they had been accustomed to
obey His servants also. Examine well the Exodus, Marcion;
look at the rod of Moses, as it waves His command to
the Red Sea, ampler than all the lakes of Judaea. How
the sea yawns from its very depths, then fixes itself
in two solidified masses, and so, out of the interval
between them,(15) makes a way for the people to pass
dry-shod across; again does the same red vibrate, the
sea returns in its strength, and in the concourse of
its waters the chivalry of Egypt is engulphed! To that
consummation the very winds subserved! Read, too, how
that the Jordan was as a sword, to hinder the emigrant
nation in their passage across its stream; how that
its waters from above stood still, and its current
below wholly ceased to run at the bidding of Joshua,(16)
when his priests began to pass over!(17)

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What will you say to this? If it be your Christ that
is meant say he will not be more potent than the servants
of the Creator. But I should have been content with
the examples I have adduced without addition,(1) if
a prediction of His present passage on the sea had
not preceded Christ's coming. As psalm is, in fact,
accomplished by this(2) crossing over the lake. "The
Lord," says the psalmist, "is upon many waters."(3)
When He disperses its waves, Habakkuk's words are fulfilled,
where he says, "Scattering the waters in His passage."(4)
When at His rebuke the sea is calmed, Nahum is also
verified: He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry,"(5)
including the winds indeed, whereby it was disquieted.
With what evidence would you have my Christ vindicated?
Shall it come from the examples, or from the prophecies,
of the Creator? You suppose that He is predicted as
a military and armed warrior,(6) instead of one who
in a figurative and allegorical sense was to wage a
spiritual warfare against spiritual enemies, in spiritual
campaigns, and with spiritual weapons: come now, when
in one man alone you discover a multitude of demons
calling itself Legion,(7) of course comprised of spirits,
you should learn that Christ also must be understood
to be an exterminator of spiritual foes, who wields
spiritual arms and fights in spiritual strife; and
that it was none other than He,(8) who now had to contend
with even a legion of demons. Therefore it is of such
a war as this that the Psalm may evidently have spoken:
"The Lord is strong, The Lord is mighty in battle."(9)
For with the last enemy death did He fight, and through
the trophy of the cross He triumphed. Now of what God
did the Legion testify that Jesus was the Son?(10)
No doubt, of that God whose torments and abyss they
knew and dreaded. It seems impossible for them to have
remained up to this time in ignorance of what the power
of the recent and unknown god was working in the world,
because it is very unlikely that the Creator was ignorant
thereof. For if He had been at any time ignorant that
there was another god above Himself, He had by this
time at all events discovered that there was one at
work(11) below His heaven. Now, what their Lord had
discovered had by this time become notorious to His
entire family within the same world and the same circuit
of heaven, in which the strange deity dwelt and acted.(12)
As therefore both the Creator and His creatures(13)
must have had knowledge of him, if he had been in existence,
so, inasmuch as he had no existence, the demons really
knew none other than the Christ of their own God. They
do not ask of the strange god, what they recollected
they must beg of the Creator--not to be plunged into
the Creator's abyss. They at last had their request
granted. On what ground? Because they had lied? Because
they had proclaimed Him to be the Son of a ruthless
God? And what sort of god will that be who helped the
lying, and upheld his detractors? However, no need
of this thought, for,(14) inasmuch as they had not
lied, inasmuch as they had acknowledged that the God
of the abyss was also their God, so did He actually
Himself affirm that He was the same whom these demons
acknowledged--Jesus, the Judge and Son of the avenging
God. Now, behold an inkling(15) of the Creator's failings(16)
and infirmities in Christ; for I on my side(17) mean
to impute to Him ignorance. Allow me some indulgence
in my effort against the heretic. Jesus is touched
by the woman who had an issue of blood,(18) He knew
not by whom. "Who touched me?" He asks, when
His disciples alleged an excuse. He even persists in
His assertion of ignorance: "Somebody hath touched
me," He says, and advances some proof: "For
I perceive that virtue is gone out of me." What
says our heretic? Could Christ have known the person?
And why did He speak as if He were ignorant? Why? Surely
it was to challenge her faith, and to try her fear.
Precisely as He had once questioned Adam, as if in
ignorance: Adam, where art thou?"(19) Thus you
have both the Creator excused in the same way as Christ,
and Christ acting similarly to(20) the Creator. But
in this case He acted as an adversary of the law; and
therefore, as the law forbids contact with a woman
with an issue,(21) He desired not only that this woman
should touch Him, but that He should heal her.(23)
Here,

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then, is a God who is not merciful by nature, but in
hostility! Yet, if we find that such was the merit
of this woman's faith, that He said unto her, Thy faith
hath saved thee."(1) what are you, that you should
detect an hostility to the law in that act, which the
Lord Himself shows us to have been done as a reward
of faith? But will you have it that this faith of the
woman consisted in the contempt which she had acquired
for the law? Who can suppose, that a woman who had
been. hitherto unconscious of any God, uninitiated
as yet in any new law, should violently infringe that
law by which she was up to this time bound? On what
faith, indeed, was such an infringement hazarded? In
what God believing? Whom despising? The Creator? Her
touch at least was an act of faith. And if of faith
in the Creator, how could she have violated His law,(2)
when she was ignorant of any other God? Whatever her
infringement of the law amounted to, it proceeded from
and was proportionate to her faith in the Creator.
But how can these two things be compatible? That she
violated the law, and violated it in faith, which ought
to have restrained her from such violation? I will
tell you how her faith was this above all:(3) it made
her believe that her God preferred mercy even to sacrifice;
she was certain that her God was working in Christ;
she touched Him, therefore, nor as a holy man simply,
nor as a prophet, whom she knew to be capable of contamination
by reason of his human nature, but as very God, whom
she assumed to be beyond all possibility of pollution
by any uncleanness.(4) She therefore, not without reason,(5)
interpreted for herself the law, as meaning that such
things as are susceptible of defilement become defiled,
but not so God, whom she knew for certain to be in
Christ. But she recollected this also, that what came
under the prohibition of the law(6) was that ordinary
and usual issue of blood which proceeds from natural
functions every month, and in childbirth, not that
which was the result of disordered health. Her case,
however, was one of long abounding(7) ill health, for
which she knew that the succour of God's mercy was
needed, and not the natural relief of time. And thus
she may: evidently be regarded as having discerned(8)
the law, instead of breaking it. This will prove to
be the faith which was to confer intelligence likewise.
"If ye will not believe," says (the prophet),
"ye shall not understand."(9) When Christ
approved of the faith of this woman, which simply rested
in the Creator, He declared by His answer to her,(10)
that He was Himself the divine object of the faith
of which He approved. Nor can I overlook the fact that
His garment, by being touched, demonstrated also the
truth of His body; for of course"(11) it was a
body, and not a phantom, which the garment clothed.(12)
This indeed is not our point now; but the remark has
a natural bearing on the question we are discussing.
For if it were not a veritable body, but only a fantastic
one, it could not for certain have received contamination,
as being an unsubstantial thing.(13) He therefore,
who, by reason of this vacuity of his substance, was
incapable of contamination, how could he possibly have
desired this touch?(14) As an adversary of the law,
his conduct was deceitful, for he was not susceptible
of a real pollution.

CHAP. XXI.--CHRIST'S CONNECTION WITH THE CREATOR SHOWN
FROM SEVERAL
INCIDENTS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT, COMPARED WITH ST. LUKE'S
NARRATIVE OF THE
MISSION OF THE DISCIPLES. THE FEEDING OF THE MUL-
TITUDE. THE CONFESSION OF ST. PETER.
BEING ASHAMED OF CHRIST. THIS SHAME IS
ONLY POSSIBLE OF THE TRUE CHRIST. MARCIONITE PRETENSIONS
ABSURD.

He sends forth His disciples to preach the kingdom
of God.(15) Does He here say of what God? He forbids
their taking anything for their journey, by way of
either food or raiment. Who would have given such a
commandment as this, but He who feeds the ravens and
clothes(16) the flowers of the field? Who anciently
enjoined for the treading ox an unmuzzled mouth,(17)
that he might be at liberty to gather his fodder from
his labour, on the principle that the worker is worthy
of his hire?(18) Marcion may expunge such precepts,
but no matter, provided the sense of them survives.
But when He charges them to shake off the dust of their
feet against such as should refuse to receive them,
He also bids that this be done as a witness. Now no
one bears witness except in a case which is decided
by judicial process; and whoever orders inhuman conduct
to be submitted to the trial by testi-

381

mony,(1) does really threaten as a judge. Again, that
it was no new god which recommended(2) by Christ, was
dearly attested by the opinion of all men, because
some maintained to Herod that Jesus was the Christ;
others, that He was John; some, that He was Elias;
and others, that He was one of the old prophetss.(3)
Now, whosoever of all these He might have been, He
certainly was not raised up for the purpose of announcing
another god after His resurrection. He feeds the multitude
in the desert place;(4) this, you must knows(5) was
after the manner of the Old Testament.(6) Or else,(7)
if there was not the same grandeur, it follows that
He is now inferior to the Creator. For He, not for
one day, but during forty years, not on the inferior
aliment of bread and fish, but with the manna of heaven,
supported the lives(8) of not five thousand, but of
six hundred thousand human beings. However, such was
the greatness of His miracle, that He willed the slender
supply of food, not only to be enough, but even to
prove superabundant;(9) and herein He followed the
ancient precedent. For in like manner, during the famine
in Elijah's time, the scanty and final meal of the
widow of Sarepta was multiplied(10) by the blessing
of the prophet throughout the period of the famine.
You have the third book of the Kings.(11) If you also
turn to the fourth book, you will discover all this
conduct(12) of Christ pursued by that man of God, who
ordered ten(13) barley loaves which had been given
him to be distributed among the people; and when his
servitor, after contrasting the large number of the
persons with the small supply of the food, answered,
"What, shall I set this before a hundred men?"
he said again, "Give them, and they shall eat:
for thus saith the Lord, They shall eat, and shall
leave thereof, according to the word of the Lord."(14)
O Christ, even in Thy novelties Thou art old! Accordingly,
when Peter, who had been an eye-witness of the miracle,
and had compared it with the ancient precedents, and
had discovered in them prophetic intimations of what
should one day come to pass, answered (as the mouthpiece
of them all) the Lord's inquiry, "Whom say ye
that I am?"(15) in the words, "Thou art the
Christ," he could not but have perceived that
He was that Christ, beside whom he knew of none else
in the Scriptures, and whom he was now surveying(16)
in His wonderful deeds. This conclusion He even Himself
confirms by thus far bearing with it, nay, even enjoining
silence respecting it.(17) For if Peter was unable
to acknowledge Him to be any other than the Creator's
Christ, while He commanded them "to tell no man
that saying," surely(18) He was unwilling to have
the conclusion promulged which Peter had drawn. No
doubt of that,(19) you say; but as Peter's conclusion
was a wrong one, therefore He was unwilling to have
a lie disseminated. It was, however, a different reason
which He assigned for the silence, even because "the
Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected
of the elders, and scribes, and priests, and be slain,
and be raised again the third day."(20) Now, inasmuch
as these sufferings were actually foretold for the
Creator's Christ (as we shall fully show in the proper
place(21)), so by this application of them to His own
case(22) does He prove that it is He Himself of whom
they were predicted. At all events, even if they had
not been predicted, the reason which He alleged for
imposing silence (on the disciples) was such as made
it clear enough that Peter had made no mistake, that
reason being the necessity of His undergoing these
sufferings. "Whosoever," says He, "will
save his life, shall lose it; and whosoever will lose
his life for my sake, the same shall save it."(23)
Surely(24) it is the Son of man(25) who uttered this
sentence. Look carefully, then, along with the king
of Babylon, into his burning fiery furnace, and there
you will discover one "like the Son of man"
(for He was not yet really Son of man, because not
yet born of man), even as early as then(26) appointing
issues such as these. He saved the lives of the three
brethren,(27) who had agreed to lose them for God's
sake; but He destroyed those of the Chaldaeans, when
they had preferred to save them by the means of their
idolatry. Where is that novelty, which you pretend(28)
in a doctrine which possesses these ancient proofs?
But all the predictions have been fulfilled(29) concerning
martydoms which were to happen, and were to receive

382

the recompenses of their reward from God. "See,"
says Isaiah, "how the righteous perisheth, and
no man layeth it to heart; and just men are taken away,
and no man considereth."(1) When does this more
frequently happen than in the persecution of His saints?
This, indeed, is no ordinary matter,(2) no common casualty
of the law of nature; but it is that illustrious devotion,
that fighting for the faith, wherein whosoever loses
his life for God saves it, so that you may here again
recognize the Judge who recompenses the evil gain of
life with its destruction, and the good loss thereof
with its salvation. It is, however, a jealous God whom
He here presents to me one who returns evil for evil.
"For whosoever," says He, "shall be
ashamed of me, of him will I also be ashamed."(3)
Now to none but my Christ can be assigned the occasion(4)
of such a shame as this. His whole course(5) was so
exposed to shame as to open a way for even the taunts
of heretics, declaiming(6) with all the bitterness
in their power against the utter disgrace(7) of His
birth and bringing-up, and the unworthiness of His
very flesh.(8) But how can that Christ of yours be
liable to a shame, which it is impossible for him to
experience? Since he was never condensed(9) into human
flesh in the womb of a woman, although a virgin; never
grew from human seed, although only after the law of
corporeal substance, from the fluids(10) of a woman;
was never deemed flesh before shaped in the womb; never
called foetus(11) after such shaping; was never delivered
from a ten months' writhing in the womb;(12) was never
shed forth upon the ground, amidst the sudden pains
of parturition, with the unclean issue which flows
at such a time through the sewerage of the body, forthwith
to inaugurate the light(13) of life with tears, and
with that primal wound which severs the child from
her who bears him;(14) never received the copious ablution,
nor the meditation of salt and honey;(15) nor did he
initiate a shroud with swaddling clothes;(16) nor afterwards
did he ever wallow(17) in his own uncleanness, in his
mother's lap; nibbling at her breast; long an infant;
gradually(18) a boy; by slow degrees(19) a man.(20)
But he was revealed(21) from heaven, full-grown at
once, at once complete; immediately Christ; simply
spirit, and power, and god. But as withal he was not
true, because not visible; therefore he was no object
to be ashamed of from the curse of the cross, the real
endurance(22) of which he escaped, because wanting
in bodily substance. Never, therefore, could he have
said, "Whosever shall be ashamed of me."
But as for our Christ, He could do no otherwise than
make such a declaration;(23) "made" by the
Father "a little lower than the angels,"(24)
"a worm and no man, a reproach of men, and despised
of the people;"(25) seeing that it was His will
that "with His stripes we should be healed,"(26)
that by His humiliation our salvation should be established.
And justly did He humble Himself(27) for His own creature
man, for the image and likeness of Himself, and not
of another, in order that man, since he had not felt
ashamed when bowing down to a stone or a stock, might
with similar courage give satisfaction to God for the
shamelessness of his idolatry, by displaying an equal
degree of shamelessness in his faith, in not being
ashamed of Christ. Now, Marcion, which of these courses
is better suited to your Christ, in respect of a meritorious
shame?(28) Plainly, you ought yourself to blush with
shame for having given him a fictitious existence.(29)

CHAP. XXII.--THE SAME CONCLUSION SUPPORTED BY THE TRANSFIGURATION.
MARCION INCONSISTENT IN ASSOCIATING WITH CHRIST IN
GLORY TWO SUCH EMINENT SERVANTS OF THE CREATOR AS MOSES
AND ELIJAH. ST. PETER'S IGNORANCE ACCOUNTED FOR ON
MONTANIST PRINCIPLE.

You ought to be very much ashamed of

383

yourself on this account too, for permitting him to
appear on the retired mountain in the company of Moses
and Elias,(1) whom he had come to destroy. This, to
be sure,(2) was what he wished to be understood as
the meaning of that voice from heaven: "This is
my beloved Son, hear Him"(3)--Him, that is, not
Moses or Elias any longer. The voice alone, therefore,
was enough, without the display of Moses and Elias;
for, by expressly mentioning whom they were to hear,
he must have forbidden all(4) others from being heard.
Or else, did he mean that Isaiah and Jeremiah and the
others whom he did not exhibit were to be heard, since
he prohibited those whom he did display? Now, even
if their presence was necessary, they surely should
not be represented as conversing together, which is
a sign of familiarity; nor as associated in glory with
him, for this indicates respect and graciousness; but
they should be shown in some slough(5) as a sure token
of their ruin, or even in that darkness of the Creator
which Christ was sent to disperse, far removed from
the glory of Him who was about to sever their words
and writings from His gospel. This, then, is the way(6)
how he demonstrates them to be aliens,(7) even by keeping
them in his own company! This is how he shows they
ought to be relinquished: he associates them with himself
instead! This is how he destroys them: he irradiates
them with his glory! How would their own Christ act?
I suppose He would have imitated the frowardness (of
heresy),(8) and revealed them just as Marcion's Christ
was bound to do, or at least as having with Him any
others rather than His own prophets! But what could
so well befit the Creator's Christ, as to manifest
Him in the company of His own foreannouncers?(9)--to
let Him be seen with those to whom He had appeared
in revelations?--to let Him be speaking with those
who had spoken of Him?--to share His glory with those
by whom He used to be called the Lord of glory; even
with those chief servants of His, one of whom was once
the moulder(10) of His people, the other afterwards
the reformer(11) thereof; one the initiator of the
Old Testament, the other the consummator(12) of the
New? Well therefore does Peter, when recognizing the
companions of his Christ in their indissoluble connection
with Him, suggest an expedient: "It is good for
us to be here" (good: that evidently means to
be where Moses and EIias are); "and let us make
three tabernacles, one for Thee, and one for Moses,
and one for Elias. But he knew not what he said."
How knew not? Was his ignorance the result of simple
error? Or was it on the principle which we maintain(14)
in the cause of the new prophecy,(15) that to grace
ecstasy. or rapture
is incident. For when a man is rapt in the Spirit, especially
when he beholds the glory of God, or when God speaks
through him, he necessarily loses his sensation,(17)
because he is overshadowed with the power of God,--a
point concerning which there is a question between
us and the carnally-minded.(18) Now, it is no difficult
matter to prove the rapture
of Peter. For how could he have known Moses and Elias,
except (by being) in the Spirit? People could not have
had their images, or statues, or likenesses; for that
the law forbade. How, if it were not that he had seen
them in the Spirit? And therefore, because it was in
the Spirit that he had now spoken, and not in his natural
senses, he could not know what he had said. But if,
on the other hand,(20) he was thus ignorant, because
he erroneously supposed that (Jesus) was their Christ,
it is then evident that Peter, when previously asked
by Christ, "Whom they thought Him to be,"
meant the Creator's Christ, when he answered, "Thou
art the Christ;" because if he had been then aware
that He belonged to the rival god, he would not have
made a mistake here. But if he was in error here
cause of his previous erroneous opinion,(21) then you
may be sure that up to that very day no new divinity
had been revealed by Christ, and that Peter had so
far made no mistake, because hitherto Christ had revealed
nothing of the kind; and that Christ accordingly was
not to be regarded as belonging to any other

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than the Creator, whose entire dispensation(1) he, in
fact, here described. He selects from His disciples
three witnesses of the impending vision and voice.
And this is just the way of the Creator. "In the
mouth of three witnesses," says He, "shall
every word be established."(2) He withdraws to
a mountain. In the nature of the place I see much meaning.
For the Creator had originally formed His ancient people
on a mountain both with visible glory and His voice.
It was only tight that the New Testament should be
attested(3) on such an elevated spot(4) as that whereon
the Old Testament had been composed;(5) under a like
covering of cloud also, which nobody will doubt, was
condensed out of the Creator's air. Unless, indeed,
he(6) had brought down his own clouds thither, because
he had himself forced his way through the Creator's
heaven;(7) or else it was only a precarious cloud,(8)
as it were, of the Creator which he used. On the present
(as also on the former)(9) occasion, therefore, the
cloud was not silent; but there was the accustomed
voice from heaven, and the Father's testimony to the
Son; precisely as in the first Psalm He had said, "Thou
art my Son, today have I begotten thee."(10) By
the mouth of Isaiah also He had asked concerning Him,
"Who is there among you that feareth God? Let
him hear the voice of His Son."(11) When therefore
He here presents Him with the words, "This is
my (beloved) Son," this clause is of course understood,
"whom I have promised." For if He once promised,
and then afterwards says, "This is He," it
is suitable conduct for one who accomplishes His purpose(12)
that He should utter His voice in proof of the promise
which He had formerly made; but unsuitable in one who
is amenable to the retort, Can you, indeed, have a
right to say, "This is my son," concerning
whom you have given us no previous information,(13)
any more than you have favoured us with a revelation
about your own prior existence? "Hear ye Him,"
therefore, whom from the beginning (the Creator) had
declared entitled to be heard in the name of a prophet,
since it was as a prophet that He had to be regarded
by the people. "A prophet," says Moses, "shall
the Lord your God raise up unto you, of your sons"
(that is, of course, after a carnal descent(14); "unto
Him shall ye hearken, as unto me."(15) "Every
one who will not hearken unto Him, his soul(16) shall
be cut off from amongst his people."(17), So also
Isaiah: "Who is there among you that feareth God?
Let him hear the voice of His Son."(18) This voice
the Father was going Himself to recommend. For, says
he,(19) He establishes the words of His Son, when He
says, "This is my beloved Son, hear ye Him."
Therefore, even if there be made a transfer of the
obedient "heating" from Moses and Elias to(20)
Christ, it is still not from(21) another God, or to
another Christ; but from" the Creator to His Christ,
in consequence of the departure of the old covenant
and the supervening of the new. "Not an ambassador,
nor an angel, but He Himself," says Isaiah, "shall
save them;"(22) for it is He Himself who is now
declaring and fulfilling the law and the prophets.
The Father gave to the Son new disciples,(23) after
that Moses and Elias had been exhibited along with
Him in the honour of His glory, and had then been dismissed
as having fully discharged their duty and office, for
the express purpose of affirming for Marcion's information
the fact that Moses and Elias had a share in even the
glory of Christ. But we have the entire structure(24)
of this same vision in Habakkuk also, where the Spirit
in the person of some(25) of the apostles says, "O
Lord, I have heard Thy speech, and was afraid."
What speech was this, other than the words of the voice
from heaven, This is my beloved Son, hear ye, Him?
"I considered thy works, and was astonished."
When could this have better happened than when Peter,
on seeing His glory, knew not what he was saying? "In
the midst of the two Thou shalt be known"--even
Moses and

385

Elias.(1) These likewise did Zechariah see under the
figure of the two olive trees and olive branches.(2)
For these are they of whom he says, "They are
the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the
whole earth." And again Habakkuk says, "His
glory covered the heavens" (that is, with that
cloud), "and His splendour shall be like the light--even
the light, wherewith His very raiment glistened."
And if we would make mention of(3) the promise to Moses,
we shall find it accomplished here. For when Moses
desired to see the Lord, saying, "If therefore
I have found grace in Thy sight, manifest Thyself to
me, that I may see Thee distinctly,"(4) the sight
which he desired to have was of that condition which
he was to assume as man, and which as a prophet he
knew was to occur. Respecting the face of God, however,
he had already heard, "No man shall see me, and
live." "This thing," said He, "which
thou hast spoken, will I do unto thee." Then Moses
said, "Show me Thy glory." And the Lord,
with like reference to the future, replied, "I
will pass before thee in my glory," etc. Then
at the last He says, "And then thou shall see
my back."(5) Not loins, or calves of the legs,
did he want to behold, but the glory which was to be
revealed in the latter days.(6) He had promised that
He would make Himself thus face to face visible to
him, when He said to Aaron, "If there shall be
a prophet among you, I will make myself known to him
by vision, and by vision will I speak with him; but
not so is my manner to Moses; with him will I speak
mouth to mouth, even apparently" (that is to say,
in the form of man which He was to assume), "and
not in dark speeches."(7) Now, although Marcion
has denied(8) that he is here represented as speaking
with the Lord, but only as standing, yet, inasmuch
as he stood "mouth to mouth," he must also
have stood "face to face" with him, to use
his words,(9) not far from him, in His very glory--not
to say,(10) in His presence. And with this glory he
went away enlightened from Christ, just as he used
to do from the Creator; as then to dazzle the eyes
of the children of Israel, so now to smite those of
the blinded Marcion, who has failed to see how this
argument also makes against him.

CHAP. XXIII.--IMPOSSIBLE THAT MARCION'S CHRIST SHOULD
REPROVE THE FAITHLESS GENERATION. SUCH LOVING CONSIDERATION
FOR INFANTS AS THE TRUE CHRIST WAS APT
TO SHEW, ALSO IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE OTHER. ON THE THREE
DIFFERENT CHARACTERS CONFRONTED AND INSTRUCTED BY CHRIST
SAMARIA.

I take on myself the character(11) of Israel. Let
Marcion's Christ stand forth, and exclaim, "O
faithless generation!(12) how long shall I be with
you? how long shall I suffer you?"(13) He will
immediately have to submit to this remonstrance from
me: "Whoever you are, O stranger,(14) first tell
us who you are, from whom you come, and what right
you have over us. Thus far, all you possess(15) belongs
to the Creator. Of course, if you come from Him, and
are acting for Him, we will bear your reproof. But
if you come from some other god, I should wish you
to tell us what you have ever committed to us belonging
to yourself,(16) which it was our duty to believe,
seeing that you are upbraiding us with 'faithlessness,'
who have never yet revealed to us your own self. How
long ago(17) did you begin to treat with us, that you
should be complaining of the delay? On what points
have you borne with us, that you should adduce(18)
your patience? Like AEsop's ass, you are just come
from the well,(19) and are filling every place with
your braying." I assume, besides,(20) the person
of the disciple, against whom he has inveighed:(21)
"O perverse nation! how long shall I be with you?
how long shall I suffer you?" This outburst of
his I might, of course, retort upon him most justly
in such words as these: "Whoever you are, O stranger,
first tell us who you are, from whom you come, what
right you have over us. Thus far, I suppose, you belong
to the Creator, and so we have followed you, recognising
in you all things which are His. Now, if you come from
Him, we will bear your reproof. If, however, you are
acting for another, prythee tell us what you have ever
conferred upon us that is simply your own, which it
had become our duty to believe, seeing that you reproach
us with 'faithlessness,' although up to this moment
you show us no credentials. How long since did you
begin to plead with us, that you are

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charging us with delay? Wherein have you borne with
us, that you should even boast of your patience? The
ass has only just arrived from AEsop's well, and he
is already braying." Now who would not thus have
rebutted the unfairness of the rebuke, if he had supposed
its author to belong to him who had had no right as
yet to complain? Except that not even He(1) would have
inveighed against them, if He had not dwelt among them
of old in the law and by the prophets, and with mighty
deeds and many mercies, and had always experienced
them to be "faithless." But, behold, Christ
takes(2) infants, and teaches how all ought to be like
them, if they ever wish to be greater.(3) The Creator,
on the contrary,(4) let loose bears against children,
in order to avenge His prophet Elisha, who had been
mocked by them.(5) This antithesis is impudent enough,
since it throws together(6) things so different as
infants(7) and children,(8)--an age still innocent,
and one already capable of discretion--able to mock,
if not to blaspheme. As therefore God is a just God,
He spared not impious children, exacting as He does
honour for every time of life, and especially, of course,
from youth. And as God is good, He so loves infants
as to have blessed the midwives in Egypt, when they
protected the infants of the Hebrews(9) which were
in peril from Pharaoh's command.(10) Christ therefore
shares this kindness with the Creator. As indeed for
Marcion's god, who is an enemy to marriage, how can
he possibly seem to be a lover of little children,
which are simply the issue of marriage? He who hates
the seed must needs also detest the fruit. Yea, he
ought to be deemed more ruthless than the king of Egypt.(11)
For whereas Pharaoh forbade infants to be brought up,
he will not allow them even to be born, depriving them
of their ten months' existence in the womb. And how
much more credible it is, that kindness to little children
should be attributed to Him who blessed matrimony for
the procreation of mankind, and in such benediction
included also the promise of connubial fruit itself,
the first of which is that of infancy!(12) The Creator,
at the request of Elias, inflicts the blow(13)of fire
from heaven in the case of that false prophet (of Baalzebub).(14)
I recognise herein the severity of the Judge. And I,
on the contrary, the severe rebuke(15) of Christ on
His disciples, when they were for inflicting(16) a
like visitation on that obscure village of the Samaritans.(17)
The heretic, too, may discover that this gentleness
of Christ was promised by the selfsame severest Judge.
"He shall not contend," says He, "nor
shall His voice be heard in the street; a bruised reed
shall He not crush, and smoking flax shall He not quench."(18)
Being of such a character, He was of course much the
less disposed to burn men. For even at that time the
Lord said to Elias,(19) "He was not in the fire,
but in the still small voice."(20) Well, but why
does this most humane and merciful God reject the man
who offers himself to Him as an inseparable companion?(21)
If it were from pride or from hypocrisy that he had
said, "I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest,'
then, by judicially reproving an act of either pride
or hypocrisy as worthy of rejection, He performed the
office of a Judge. And, of course, him whom He rejected
He condemned to the loss of not following the Saviour.(22)
For as He calls to salvation him whom He does not reject,
or him whom He voluntarily invites, so does He consign
to perdition him whom He rejects. When, however, He
answers the man, who alleged as an excuse his father's
burial, "Let the dead bury their dead, but go
thou and preach the kingdom of God,"(23) He gave
a clear confirmation to those two laws of the Creator--that
in Leviticus, which concerns the sacerdotal office,
and forbids the priests to be present at the funerals
even of their parents. "The priest," says
He, "shall not enter where there is any dead person;(24)
and for his father he shall not be defiled"(25);
as well as that in Numbers, which relates to the (Nazarite)
vow of separation; for there he who devotes himself
to God, among other things, is bidden "not to
come at any dead body," not even of his father,
or his mother, or his brother.(26) Now it was, I suppose,
for the Nazarite and the priestly office that He intended
this man whom

387

He had been inspiring(1) to preach the kingdom of God.
Or else, if it be not so, he must be pronounced impious
enough who, without the intervention of any precept
of the law, commanded that burials of parents should
be neglected by their sons. When, indeed, in the third
case before us, (Christ) forbids the man "to look
back" who wanted first "to bid his family
farewell," He only follows out the rule(2) of
the Creator. For this (retrospection) He had been against
their making, whom He had rescued out of Sodom.(3)

CHAP. XXIV.--ON THE MISSION OF THE SEVENTY DISCIPLES,
AND CHRIST'S CHARGE TO THEM. PRECEDENTS DRAWN FROM
THE OLD TESTAMENT. ABSURDITY OF SUPPOSING THAT MARCION'S
CHRIST COULD HAVE GIVEN THE POWER OF TREADING ON SERPENTS
AND SCORPIONS.

He chose also seventy other missionaries(4) besides
the twelve. Now why, if the twelve followed the number
of the twelve fountains of Elim,(5) should not the
seventy correspond to the like number of the palms
of that place?(6) Whatever be the Antitheses of the
comparison, it is a diversity in the causes, not in
the powers, which has mainly produced them. But if
one does not keep in view the diversity of the causes,(7)
he is very apt to infer a difference of powers.(8)
When the children of Israel went out of Egypt, the
Creator brought them forth laden with their spoils
of gold and silver vessels, and with loads besides
of raiment and unleavened dough;(9) whereas Christ
commanded His disciples not to carry even a staff(10)
for their journey. The former were thrust forth into
a desert, but the latter were sent into cities. Consider
the difference presented in the occasions,(11) and
you will understand how it was one and the same power
which arranged the mission(12) of His people according
to their poverty in the one case, and their plenty
in the other. He cut down(13) their supplies when they
could be replenished through the cities, just as He
had accumulated" them when exposed to the scantiness
of the desert. Even shoes He forbade them to carry.
For it was He under whose very protection the people
wore not out a shoe,(15) even in the wilderness for
the space of so
many years. "No one," says He, "shall
ye salute by the way."(16) What a destroyer of
the prophets, forsooth, is Christ, seeing it is from
them that He received his precept also! When Elisha
sent on his servant Gehazi before him to raise the
Shunammite's son from death, I rather think he gave
him these instructions:(17) "Gird up thy loins,
and take my staff in thine hand, and go thy way: if
thou meet any man, salute him not;(18) and if any salute
thee, answer him not again."(19) For what is a
wayside blessing but a mutual salutation as men meet?
So also the Lord commands: "Into whatsoever house
they enter, let them say, Peace be to it."(20)
Herein He follows the very same example. For Elisha
enjoined upon his servant the same salutation when
he met the Shunammite; he was to say to her: "Peace
to thine husband, peace to thy child."(21) Such
will be rather our Antitheses; they compare Christ
with, instead of sundering Him from, the Creator. "The
labourer is worthy of his hire."(22) Who could
better pronounce such a sentence than the Judge? For
to decide that the workman deserves his wages, is in
itself a judicial act. There is no award which consists
not in process of judgment. The law of the Creator
on this point also presents us with a corroboration,
for He judges that labouring oxen are as labourers
worthy of their hire: "Thou shall not muzzle,"
says He. "the ox when he treadeth out the corn."(23)
Now, who so good to man(24) as He who is also merciful
to cattle? Now, when Christ pronounced labourers to
be worthy of their hire, He, in fact, exonerated from
blame that precept of the Creator about depriving the
Egyptians of their gold and silver vessels.(25) For
they who had built for the Egyptians their houses and
cities, were surely workmen worthy of their hire, and
were not instructed in a fraudulent act, but only set
to claim compensation for their hire, which they were
unable in any other way to exact from their masters.(26)
That the kingdom of God was neither new nor unheard
of, He in this way affirmed, whilst at the same time
He bids them announce that it was near at hand.(27)
Now it is that which

388

was once far off, which can be properly said to have
become near. If, however, a thing had never existed
previous to its becoming near, it could never have
been said to have approached, because it had never
existed at a distance. Everything which is new and
unknown is also sudden.(1) Everything which is sudden,
then, first receives the accident of time(2) when it
is announced, for it then first puts on appearance
of form.(3) Besides it will be impossible for a thing
either to have been tardy(4) all the while it remained
unannounced,(5) or to have approached(6) from the time
it shall begin to be announced.
He likewise adds, that they should say to such as
would not receive them: "Notwithstanding be ye
sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh
unto you."(7) If He does not enjoin this by way
of a commination, the injunction is a most useless
one. For what mattered it to them that the kingdom
was at hand, unless its approach was accompanied with
judgment?--even for the salvation of such as received
the announcement thereof. How, if there can be a threat
without its accomplishment, can you have in a threatening
god, one that executes also, and in both, one that
is a judicial being?(8) So, again, He commands that
the dust be shaken off against them, as a testimony,--the
very particles of their ground which might cleave(9)
to the sandal, not to mention(10) any other sort of
communication with them.(11) But if their churlishness(12)
and inhospitality were to receive no vengeance from
Him, for what purpose does He premise a testimony,
which surely forbodes some threats? Furthermore, when
the Creator also, in the book of Deuteronomy, forbids
the reception of the Ammonites and the Moabites into
the church,(13) because, when His people came from
Egypt, they fraudulently withheld provisions from them
with inhumanity and inhospitality,(14) it will be manifest
that the prohibition of intercourse descended to Christ
from Him. The form of it which He uses--"He that
despiseth you, despiseth me"(15)--the Creator
had also addressed to Moses: "Not against thee
have they murmured, but against me."(16) Moses,
indeed, was as much an apostle as the apostles were
prophets. The authority of both offices will have to
be equally divided, as it proceeds from one and the
same Lord, (the God) of apostles and prophets. Who
is He that shall bestow "the power of treading
on serpents and scorpions?"(17) Shall it be He
who is the Lord of all living creatures or he who is
not god over a single lizard? Happily the Creator has
promised by Isaiah to give this power even to little
children, of putting their hand in the cockatrice den
and on the hole of the young asps without at all receiving
hurt.(18) And, indeed, we are aware (without doing
violence to the literal sense of the passage, since
even these noxious animals have actually been unable
to do hurt where there has been faith) that under the
figure of scorpions and serpents are portended evil
spirits, whose very prince is described(19) by the
name of serpent, dragon, and every other most conspicuous
beast in the power of the Creator.(20) This power the
Creator conferred first of all upon His Christ, even
as the ninetieth Psalm says to Him: "Upon the
asp and the basilisk shall Thou tread; the lion and
the dragon shall Thou trample under foot."(21)
So also Isaiah: "In that day the Lord God shall
draw His sacred, great, and strong sword" (even
His Christ) "against that dragon, that great and
tortuous serpent; and He shall slay him in that day."(22)
But when the same prophet says, "The way shall
be called a clean and holy way; over it the unclean
thing shall not pass, nor shall be there any unclean
way; but the dispersed shall pass over it, and they
shall not err therein; no lion shall be there, nor
any ravenous beast shall go up thereon; it shall not
be found there,"(23) he points out the way of
faith, by which we shall reach to God; and then to
this way of faith he promises this utter crippling(24)
and subjugation of all noxious animals. Lastly, you
may discover the suitable times of the promise, if
you read what precedes the passage: "Be strong,
ye weak hands and ye feeble knees: then the eyes of
the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf
shall hear; then shall the lame man leap as an hart,
and the tongue of the dumb shall be articulate."(25)
When, therefore, He proclaimed the benefits of His
cures, then also did He put the scorpions and the

389

serpents under the feet of His saints--even He who had
first received this power from the Father, in order
to bestow it upon others and then manfested it forth
conformably to the order of prophecy.(1)

CHAP. XXV.--CHRIST THANKS THE FATHER FOR REVEALING TO
BABES WHAT HE HAD CONCEALED FROM THE WISE. THIS CONCEALMENT
JUDICIOUSLY EFFECTED BY THE CREATOR. OTHER POINTS IN
ST. LUKE'S CHAP. X. SHOWN TO BE ONLY POSSIBLE TO THE
CREATOR'S CHRIST.

Who shall be invoked as the Lord of heaven, that
does not first show Himself(2) to have been the maker
thereof? For He says, "I thank thee, (O Father,)and
own Thee, Lord of heaven, because those things which
had been hidden from the wise and prudent, Thou has
revealed unto babes."(3) What things are these?
And whose? And by whom hidden? And by whom revealed?
If it was by Marcion's god that they were hidden and
revealed, it was an extremely iniquitous proceeding;(4)
for nothing at all had he ever produced(5) in which
anything could have been hidden--no prophecies, no
parables, no visions, no evidences(6) of things, or
words, or names, obscured by allegories and figures,
or cloudy enigmas, but he had concealed the greatness
even of himself, which he was with all his might revealing
by his Christ. Now in what respect had the wise and
prudent done wrong,(7) that God should be hidden from
them, when their wisdom and prudence had been insufficient
to come to the knowledge of Him? No way had been provided
by himself,(8) by any declaration of his works, or
any vestiges whereby they might become(9) wise and
prudent. However, if they had even failed in any duty
towards a god whom they knew not, suppose him now at
last to be known still they ought not to have found
a jealous god in him who is introduced as unlike the
Creator. Therefore, since he had neither provided any
materials in which he could have hidden anything, nor
had any offenders from whom he could have hidden himself:
since, again, even if he had had any, he ought not
to have hidden himself from them, he will not now be
himself the revealer, who was not previously the concealer;
so neither will any be the Lord of heaven nor the Father
of Christ but He in whom all these attributes consistently
meet.(10) For He conceals by His preparatory apparatus
of prophetic obscurity, the understanding of which
is open to faith (for "if ye will not believe,
ye shall not understand"(11); and He had offenders
in those wise and prudent ones who would not seek after
God, although He was to be discovered in His so many
and mighty works,(12) or who rashly philosophized about
Him, and thereby furnished to heretics their arts;(13)
and lastly, He is a jealous God. Accordingly,(14) that
which Christ thanks God for doing, He long ago (15)
announced by Isaiah: "I will destroy the wisdom
of the wise, and the understanding of the prudent will
I hide."(16) So in another passage He intimates
both that He has concealed, and that He will also reveal:
"I will give unto them treasures that have been
hidden, and secret ones will I discover to them."(17)
And again: "Who else shall scatter the tokens
of ventriloquists,(18) and the devices of those who
divine out of their own heart; turning wise men backward,
and making their counsels foolish?"(19) Now, if
He has designated His Christ as an enlightener of the
Gentiles, saying, "I have set thee for a light
of the Gentiles;"(20) and if we understand these
to be meant in the word babes(21)--as having been once
dwarfs in knowledge and infants in prudence, and even
now also babes in their lowliness of faith--we shall
of course more easily understand how He who had once
hidden "these things," and promised a revelation
of them through Christ, was the same God as He who
had now revealed them unto babes. Else, if it was Marcion's
god who revealed the things which had been formerly
hidden by the Creator, it follows(22) that he did the
Creator's work by setting forth His deeds.(23) But
he did it, say you, for His destruction, that he might
refute them.(24) Therefore he ought to have refuted
them to those from whom the Creator had hidden them,
even the wise and prudent. For if he had a kind intention
in what he did, the gift of knowledge was due to those
from whom the Creator had detained it, instead of the
babes, to whom the Creator had grudged no gift. But
after all, it is, I presume, the edifica-

390

tion(1) rather than the demolition(2) of the law and
the prophets which we have thus far found effected
in Christ. "All things," He says, "are
delivered unto me of my Father."(3) you may believe
Him, if He is the Christ of the Creator to whom all
things belong; because the Creator has not delivered
to a Son who is less than Himself all things, which
He created by(4) Him, that is to say, by His Word.
If, on the contrary, he is the notorious stranger,(5)
what are the" all things" which have been
delivered to him by the Father? Are they the Creator's?
Then the things which the Father delivered to the Son
are good. and the Creator is therefore good, since
all His "things" are good; whereas he(6)
is no longer good who has invaded another's good (domains)
to deliver it to his son, thus teaching robbery(7)
of another's goods. Surely he must be a most mendacious
being, who had no other means of enriching his son
than by helping himself to another's property! Or else,(8)
if nothing of the Creator's has been delivered to him
by the Father, by what right(9) does he claim for himself
(authority over) man? Or again, if man has been delivered
to him, and man alone, then man is not "all things."
But Scripture clearly says that a transfer of all things
has been made to the Son. If, however, you should interpret
this "all" of the whole human race, that
is, all nations, then the delivery of even these to
the Son is within the purpose of the Creator:(10) "I
will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and
the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession."(11)
If, indeed, he has some things of his own, the whole
of which he might give to his son, along with the man
of the Creator, then show some one thing of them all,
as a sample, that I may believe; lest I should have
as much reason not to believe that all things belong
to him, of whom I see nothing, as I have ground for
believing that even the things which I see not are
His, to whom belongs the universe, which I see. But
"no man knoweth who the Father is, but the Son;
and who the Son is, but the Father, and he to whom
the Son will reveal Him."(12) And so it was an
unknown god that Christ preached! And other heretics,
too, prop themselves up by this passage; alleging in
opposition to it that the Creator was known to all,
both to lsrael by familiar intercourse, and to the
Gentiles by nature. Well, how is it He Himself testifies
that He was not known to lsrael? "But Israel cloth
not know me, and my people doth not consider me;"(13)
nor to the Gentiles: "For, behold," says
He, "of the nations I have no man."(14) Therefore
He reckoned them "as the drop of a bucket,"(15)
while "Sion He left as a look-out(16) in a vineyard."(17)
See, then, whether there be not here a confirmation
of the prophet's word, when he rebukes that ignorance
of man toward God which continued to the days of the
Son of man. For it was on this account that he inserted
the clause that the Father is known by him to whom
the Son has revealed Him, because it was even He who
was announced as set by the Father to be a light to
the Gentiles, who of course required to be enlightened
concerning God, as well as to Israel, even by imparting
to it a fuller knowledge of God. Arguments, therefore,
will be of no use for belief in the rival god which
may be suitable(18) for the Creator, because it is
only such as are unfit for the Creator which will be
able to advance belief in His rival. If you look also
into the next words, "Blessed are the eyes which
see the things which ye see, for I tell you that prophets
have not seen the things which ye see,"(19) you
will find that they follow from the sense above, that
no man indeed had come to the knowledge of God as he
ought to have done,(20) since even the prophets had
not seen the things which were being seen under Christ.
Now if He had not been my Christ, He would not have
made any mention of the prophets in this passage. For
what was there to wonder at, if they had not seen the
things of a god who had been unknown to them, and was
only revealed a long time after them? What blessedness,
however, could theirs have been, who were then seeing
what others were naturally(21) unable to see, since
it was of things which they had never predicted that
they had not obtained the sight;(22) if it were not
because they might justly(23) have seen the things
pertaining to their God, which they had even predicted,
but which they at the same time(24) had not seen? This,
however, will be the blessedness of others, even of
such as were seeing the things which

391

others had only foretold. We shall by and by show, nay,
we have already shown, that in Christ those things
were seen which had been foretold, but yet had been
hidden from the very prophets who foretold them, in
order that they might be hidden also from the wise
and the prudent. In the true Gospel, a certain doctor
of the law comes to the Lord and asks, "What shall
I do to inherit life?" In the heretical gospel
life only is mentioned, without the attribute eternal;
so that the lawyer seems to have consulted Christ simply
about the life which the Creator in the law promises
to prolong,(1) and the Lord to have therefore answered
him according to the law, "Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy strength,"(2) since the question
was concerning the conditions of mere life. But the
lawyer of course knew very well in what way the life
which the law meant(3) was to be obtained, so that
his question could have had no relation to the life
whose rules he was himself in the habit of teaching.
But seeing that even the dead were now raised by Christ,
and being himself excited to the hope of an eternal
life by these examples of a restored(4) one, he would
lose no more time in merely looking on (at the wonderful
things which had made him) so high in hope.(5) He therefore
consulted him about the attainment of eternal life.
Accordingly, the Lord, being Himself the same,(6) and
introducing no new precept other than that which relates
above all others(7) to (man's) entire salvation, even
including the present and the future life,(8) places
before him(9) the very essence(10) of the law--that
he should in every possible way love the Lord his God.
If, indeed, it were only about a lengthened life, such
as is at the Creator's disposal, that he inquired and
Christ answered, and not about the eternal life, which
is at the disposal of Marcion's god, how is he to obtain
the eternal one? Surely not in the same manner as the
prolonged life. For in proportion to the difference
of the reward must be supposed to be also the diversity
of the services. Therefore your disciple, Marcion,(11)
will not obtain his eternal life in consequence of
loving your God, in the same way as the man who loves
the Creator will secure the lengthened life. But how
happens it that, if He is to be loved who promises
the prolonged I life, He is not much more to be loved
who offers the eternal life? Therefore both one and
the other life will be at the disposal of one and the
same Lord; because one and the same discipline is to
be followed(12) for one and the other life. What the
Creator teaches to be loved, that must He necessarily
maintain(13) also by Christ,(14) for that rule holds
good here, which prescribes that greater things ought
to be believed of Him who has first lesser proofs to
show, than of him for whom no preceding smaller presumptions
have secured a claim to be believed in things of higher
import. It matters not(15) then, whether the word eternal
has been interpolated by us.(16) It is enough for me,
that the Christ who invited men to the eternal--not
the lengthened--life, when consuited about the temporal
life which he was destroying, did not choose to exhort
the man rather to that eternal life which he was introducing.
Pray, what would the Creator's Christ have done. if
He who had made man for loving the Creator did not
belong to the Creator? I suppose He would have said
that the Creator was not to be loved!

CHAP.XXVI.--FROM ST. LUKE'S ELEVENTH CHAPTER OTHER EVIDENCE
THAT CHRIST
COMES FROM THE CREATOR. THE LORD'S PRAYER AND OTHER
WORDS OF CHRIST. THE DUMB SPIRIT AND CHRIST'S DISCOURSE
ON OCCASION OF THE EXPULSION. THE EXCLAMATION OF THE
WOMAN IN THE CROWD.

When in a certain place he had been praying to that
Father above,(17) looking up with insolent and audacious
eyes to the heaven of the Creator, by whom in His rough
and cruel nature he might have been crushed with hail
and lightning--just as it was by Him contrived that
he was (afterwards) attached to a cross(18) at Jerusalem--one
of his disciples came to him and said, "Master,
teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples."
This he said, forsooth, because he thought that different
prayers were required for different gods! Now, he who
had advanced such a conjecture as this should first
show that another god had been proclaimed by Christ.
For nobody would have wanted to know how to pray, before
he had learned whom he was to pray to. If, however,
he had already learned this, prove it. If you find
nowhere any proof, let me tell you(19) that it was
to the Creator that he asked

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for instruction in prayer, to whom John's disciples
also used to pray. But, inasmuch as John had introduced
some new order of prayer, this disciple had not improperly
presumed to think that he ought also to ask of Christ
whether they too must not (according to some special
rule of their Master) pray, not indeed to another god,
but in another manner. Christ accordingly(1) would
not have taught His disciple prayer before He had given
him the knowledge of God Himself. Therefore what He
actually taught was prayer to Him whom the disciple
had already known. In short, you may discover in the
import(2) of the prayer what God is addressed therein.
To whom can I say, "Father?"(3) To him who
had nothing to do with making me, from whom I do not
derive my origin? Or to Him, who, by making and fashioning
me, became my parent?(4) Of whom can I ask for His
Holy Spirit? Of him who gives not even the mundane
spirit;(5) or of Him "who maketh His angels spirits,"
and whose Spirit it was which in the beginning hovered
upon the waters.(6) Whose kingdom shall I wish to come--his,
of whom I never heard as the king of glory; or His,
in whose hand are even the hearts of kings? Who shall
give me my daily(7) bread? Shall it be he who produces
for me not a grain of miIlet-seed;(8) or He who even
from heaven gave to His people day by day the bread
of angels?(9) Who shall forgive me my trespasses?(10)
He who, by refusing to judge them, does not retain
them; or He who, unless He forgives them, will retain
them, even to His judgment? Who shall suffer us not
to be led into temptation? He before whom the tempter
will never be able to tremble; or He who from the beginning
has beforehand condemned(11) the angel tempter? If
any one, with such a form,(12) invokes another god
and not the Creator, he does not pray; he only blasphemes.(13)
In like manner, from whom must I ask that I may receive?
Of whom seek, that I may find? To whom knock, that
it may be opened to me?(14) Who has to give to him
that asks, but He to whom all things belong, and whose
am I also that am the asker? What, however, have I
lost before that other god, that I should seek of him
and find it. If it be wisdom and prudence, it is the
Creator who has hidden them. Shall I resort to him,
then, in quest of them? If it be health(15) and life,
they are at the disposal of the Creator. Nor must anything
be sought and found anywhere else than there, where
it is kept in secret that it may come to light. So,
again, at no other door will I knock than at that out
of which my privilege has reached me.(16) In fine,
if to receive, and to find, and to be admitted, is
the fruit of labour and earnestness to him who has
asked, and sought, and knocked, understand that these
duties have been enjoined, and results promised, by
the Creator. As for that most excellent god of yours,
coming as he professes gratuitously to help man, who
was not his (creature),(17) he could not have imposed
upon him any labour, or (endowed him with) any earnestness.
For he would by this time cease to be the most excellent
god, were he not spontaneously to give to every one
who does not ask, and permit every one who seeks not
to find, and open to every one who does not knock.
The Creator, on the contrary,(18) was able to proclaim
these duties and rewards by Christ, in order that man,
who by sinning had offended his God, might toil on
(in his probation), and by his perseverance in asking
might receive, and in seeking might find, and in knocking
might enter. Accordingly, the preceding similitude(19)
represents the man who went at night and begged for
the loaves, in the light of a friend and not a stranger,
and makes him knock at a friend's house and not at
a stranger's. But even if he has offended, man is more
of a friend with the Creator than with the god of Marcion.
At His door, therefore, does he knock to whom he had
the right of access; whose gate he had found; whom
he knew to possess bread; in bed now with His children,
whom He had willed to be born.(20) Even though the
knocking is late in the day, it is yet the Creator's
time. To Him belongs the latest hour who owns an entire
age(21) and the end thereof. As for the new god, however,
no one could have knocked at his door late, for he
has hardly yet(22) seen the light of morning. It is
the Creator, who once shut the door to the Gentiles,
which was then knocked at by the Jews, that both rises
and gives, if not now to man as a friend, yet not as
a stranger, but, as He says, "because

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of his importunity."(1) Impoprtant, however, the
recent god could not have permitted any one to be in
the short time (since his appearance).(2) Him, therefore,
whom you call the Creator recognise also as "Father."
It is even He who knows what His children require.
For when they asked for bread, He gave them manna from
heaven; and when they wanted flesh, He sent them abundance
of quails--not a serpent for a fish, nor for an egg
a scorpion.(3) It will, however, appertain to Him not
to give evil instead of good, who has both one and
the other in His power. Marcion's god, on the contrary,
not having a scorpion, was unable to refuse to give
what he did not possess; only He (could do so), who,
having a scorpion, yet gives it not. In like manner,
it is He who will give the Holy Spirit, at whose command(4)
is also the unholy spirit. When He cast out the "demon
which was dumb"(5) (and by a cure of this sort
verified Isaiah),(6) and having been charged with casting
out demons by Beelzebub, He said, "If I by Beelzebub
cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out?"(7)
By such a question what does He otherwise mean, than
that He ejects the spirits by the same power by which
their sons also did--that is, by the power of the Creator?
For if you suppose the meaning to be, "If I by
Beelzebub, etc., by whom your sons?"--as if He
would reproach them with having the power of Beelzebub,--you
are met at once by the preceding sentence, that "Satan
cannot be divided against himself."(8) So that
it was not by Beelzebub that even they were casting
out demons, but (as we have said) by the power of the
Creator; and that He might make this understood, He
adds: "But if I with the finger of God cast out
demons, is not the kingdom of God come near unto you?"(9)
For the magicians who stood before Pharaoh and resisted
Moses called the power of the Creator" the finger
of God."(10) It was the finger of God, because
it was a sign(11) that even a thing of weakness was
yet abundant in strength. This Christ also showed,
when, recalling to notice (and not obliterating) those
ancient wonders which were really His own,(12) He said
that the power of God must be understood to be the
finger of none other God than Him, under(13) whom it
had received this appellation. His kingdom, therefore,
was come near to them, whose power was called His "finger."
Well, therefore, did He connect" with the parable
of "the strong man armed," whom "a stronger
man still overcame,(15) the prince of the demons, whom
He had already called Beelzebub and Satan; signifying
that it was he who was overcome by the finger of God,
and not that the Creator had been subdued by another
god. Besides,(16) how could His kingdom be still standing,
with its boundaries, and laws, and functions, whom,
even if the whole world were left entire to Him, Marcion's
god could possibly seem to have overcome as "the
stronger than He," if it were not in consequence
of His law that even Marcionites were constantly dying,
by returning in their dissolution(17) to the ground,
and were so often admonished by even a scorpion, that
the Creator had by no means been overcome?(18) "A
(certain) mother of the company exclaims, 'Blessed
is the womb that bare Thee, and the paps which Thou
hast sucked;' but the Lord said, 'Yea, rather, blessed
are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.'"(19)
Now He had in precisely similar terms rejected His
mother or His brethren, whilst preferring those who
heard and obeyed God.(20) His mother, however, was
not here present with Him. On that former occasion,
therefore, He had not denied that He was her son by
birth.(21) On hearing this (salutation) the second
time, He the second time transferred, as He had done
before,(22) the "blessedness" to His disciples
from the womb and the paps of His mother, from whom,
however, unless He had in her (a real mother) He could
not have transferred it.

CHAP. XXVII.--CHRIST'S REPREHENSION OF THE PHARISEES
SEEKING A SIGN. HIS CENSURE OF THEIR LOVE OF OUTWARD
SHOW RATHER THAN INWARD HOLINESS.SCRIPTURE ABOUNDS
WITH ADMONITIONS OF A SIMILAR PURPORT, PROOFS OF HIS
MISSION FROM THE CREATOR.

I prefer elsewhere refuting(23) the faults which
the Marcionites find in the Creator. It is here enough
that they are also found in Christ.(24) Behold how
unequal, inconsistent, and capricious he is! Teaching
one thing

394

and doing another, he enjoins "giving to every
one that seeks;" and yet he himself refuses to
give to those "who seek a sign."(1) For a
vast age he hides his own light from men, and yet says
that a candle must not be hidden, but affirms that
it ought to be set upon a candlestick, that it may
give light to all.(2) He forbids cursing again, and
cursing much more of course; and yet he heaps his woe
upon the Pharisees and doctors of the law.(3) Who so
closely resembles my God as: His own Christ? We have
often already laid it down for certain,(4) that He
could not have been branded(5) as the destroyer of
the law if He had promulged another god. Therefore
even the Pharisee, who invited Him to dinner in the
passage before us,(6) expressed some surprise(7) in
His presence that He had not washed before He sat down
to meat, in accordance with the law, since it was the
God of the law that He was proclaiming.(8) Jesus also
interpreted the law to him when He told him that they
"made clean the outside of the cup and the platter,
whereas their inward part was full of ravening and
wickedness." This He said, to signify that by
the cleansing of vessels was to be understood before
God the purification of men, inasmuch as it was about
a man, and not about an unwashed vessel, that even
this Pharisee had been treating in His presence. He
therefore said: "You wash the outside of the cup,"
that is, the flesh, "but you do not cleanse your
inside part,"(9) that is, the soul; adding: "Did
not He that made the outside," that is, the flesh,
"also make the inward part," that is to say,
the soul?--by which assertion He expressly declared
that to the same God belongs the cleansing of a man's
external and internal nature, both alike being in the
power of Him who prefers mercy not only to man's washing,(10)
but even to sacrifice.(11) For He subjoins the command:
"Give what ye possess as alms, and alI things
shall be clean unto you."(12) Even if another
god could have enjoined mercy, he could not have done
so previous to his becoming known. Furthermore, it
is in this passage evident that they(13) were not reproved
concerning their God, but concerning a point of His
instruction to them, when He prescribed to them figuratively
the cleansing of their vessels, but really the works
of merciful dispositions. In like manner, He upbraids
them for tithing paltry herbs,(14) but at the same
time "passing over hospitality(15) and the love
of God. (16) The vocation and the love of what God,
but Him by whose law of tithes they used to offer their
rue and mint? For the whole point of the rebuke lay
in this, that they cared about small matters in His
service of course, to whom they failed to exhibit their
weightier duties when He commanded them: "Thou
shalt love with all thine heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy strength, the Lord thy God, who hath
called thee out of Egypt."(17) Besides, time enough
had not yet passed to admit of Christ's requiring so
premature--nay, as yet so distasteful(18)--a love towards
a new and recent, not to say a hardly i yet developed,(19)
deity. When, again, He upbraids those who caught at
the uppermost places and the honour of public salutations,
He only follows out the Creator's course,(20) who calls
ambitious persons of this character "rulers of
Sodom"(21) who forbids us "to put confidence
even in princes,"(22) and pronounces him to be
altogether wretched who places his confidence in man.
But whoever(23) aims at high position, because he would
glory in the officious attentions(24) of other people,
(in every such case,) inasmuch as He forbade such attentions
(in the shape) of placing hope and confidence in man,
He at the same time(25) censured all who were ambitious
of high positions. He also inveighs against the doctors
of the law themselves, because they were "lading
men with burdens grievous to be borne, which they did
not venture to touch with even a finger of their own;"(26)
but not as if He made a mock of(27) the burdens of
the law with any feeling of detestation towards it.
For how could He have felt aversion to the law, who
used with so much earnestness to upbraid them for passing
over its weightier matters, alms--giving, hospitality,(28)
and the love of God? Nor, indeed, was it only these
great things (which He recognized), but even(29) the
tithes of rue and the cleansing of cups. But,

395

in truth, He would rather have deemed them excusable
for being unable to carry burdens which could not be
borne. What, then, are the burdens which He censures?(1)
None but those which they were accumulating of their
own accord, when they taught for commandments the doctrines
of men; for the sake of private advantage joining house
to house, so as to deprive their neighbour of his own;
cajoling(2) the people, loving gifts, pursuing rewards,
robbing the poor of the rights of judgment, that they
might have the widow for a prey and the fatherless
for a spoil.(3) Of these Isaiah also says, "Woe
unto them that are strong in Jerusalem!"(4) and
again, "They that demand you shall rule over you."(5)
And who did this more than the lawyers?(6) Now, if
these offended Christ, it was as belonging to Him that
they offended Him. He would have aimed no blow at the
teachers of an alien law. But why is a "woe"
pronounced against them for "building the sepulchres
of the prophets whom their fathers had killed?"(7)
They rather deserved praise, because by such an act
of piety they seemed to show that they did not allow
the deeds of their fathers. Was it not because (Christ)
was jealous(8) of such a disposition as the Marcionites
denounce,(9) visiting the sins of the fathers upon
the children unto the fourth generation? What "key,"
indeed, was it which these lawyers had,(10) but the
interpretation of the law? Into the perception of this
they neither entered themselves, even because they
did not believe (for "unless ye believe, ye shall
not understand"); nor did they permit others to
enter, because they preferred to teach them for commandments
even the doctrines of men. When, therefore, He reproached
those who did not themselves enter in, and also shut
the door against others, must He be regarded as a disparager
of the law, or as a supporter of it? If a disparager,
those who were hindering the law ought to have been
pleased; if a supporter, He is no longer an enemy of
the law.(11) But all these imprecations He uttered
in order to tarnish the Creator as a cruel Being,(12)
against whom such as offended were destined to have
a "woe." And who would not rather have feared
to provoke a cruel Being,(13) by withdrawing allegiance(14)
from Him? Therefore the more He represented the Creator
to be an object of fear, the more earnestly would He
teach that He ought to be served. Thus would it behove
the Creator's Christ to act.

CHAP. XXVIII.--EXAMPLES FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT, BALAAM,
MOSES, AND HEZEKIAH, TO SHOW HOW COMPLETELY THE INSTRUCTION
AND CONDUCT OF CHRIST(15) ARE IN KEEPING WITH THE WILL
AND PURPOSE OF THE CREATOR.

Justly, therefore, was the hypocrisy of the Pharisees
displeasing to Him, loving God as they did with their
lips, but not with their heart. "Beware,"
He says to the disciples, "of the leaven of the
Pharisees, which is hypocrisy," not the proclamation
of the Creator. The Son hates those who refused obedience(16)
to the Father; nor does He wish His disciples to show
such a disposition towards Him--not (let it be observed)
towards another god, against whom such hypocrisy indeed
might have been admissible, as that which He wished
to guard His disciples against. It is the example of
the Pharisees which He forbids. It was in respect of
Him against whom the Pharisees were sinning that (Christ)
now forbade His disciples to offend. Since, then, He
had censured their hypocrisy, which covered the secrets
of the heart, and obscured with superficial offices
the mysteries of unbelief, because (while holding the
key of knowledge) it would neither enter in itself,
nor permit others to enter in, He therefore adds, "There
is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; neither
hid, which shall not be known,"(17) in order that
no one should suppose that He was attempting the revelation
and the recognition of an hitherto unknown and hidden
god. When He remarks also on their murmurs and taunts,
in saying of Him, "This man casteth out devils
only through Beelzebub," He means that all these
imputations would come forth to the light of day, and
be in the mouths of men in consequence of the promulgation
of the Gospel. He then turns to His disciples with
these words, "I say unto you, my friends, Be not
afraid of them which can only kill the body, and after
that have no more power over you."(18) They will,
however, find Isaiah had already said, "See how
the just man is taken away, and no man layeth it to
heart."(19) "But I will show you whom ye
shall fear: fear Him who, after

396

He hath killed, hath power to cast into hell" (meaning,
of course, the Creator); "yea, I say unto you,
fear Him."(1) Now, it would here be enough for
my purpose that He forbids offence being given to Him
whom He orders to be feared; and that He orders Him
to be respected(2) whom He forbids to be offended;
and that He who gives these commands belongs to that
very God for whom He procures this fear, this absence
of offence, and this respect. But this conclusion I
can draw also from the following words: "For I
say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men,
him will I also confess before God."(3) Now they
who shall confess Christ will have to be slain(4) before
men, but they will have nothing more to suffer after
they have been put to death by them. These therefore
will be they whom He forewarns above not to be afraid
of being only killed; and this forewarning He offers,
in order that He might subjoin a clause on the necessity
of confessing Him: "Every one that denieth me
before men shall be denied before God"(5)--by
Him, of course, who would have confessed him, if he
had only confessed God. Now, He who will confess the
confessor is the very same God who will also deny the
denier of Himself. Again, if it is the confessor who
will have nothing to fear after his violent death,(6)
it is the denier to whom everything will become fearful
after his natural death. Since, therefore, that which
will have to be feared after death, even the punishment
of hell, belongs to the Creator, the denier, too, belongs
to the Creator. As with the denier, however, so with
the confessor: if he should deny God, he will plainly
have to suffer from God, although from men he had nothing
more to suffer after they had put him to death. And
so Christ is the Creator's, because He shows that all
those who deny Him ought to fear the Creator's hell.
After deterring
disciples from denial of Himself, He adds an admonition
to fear blasphemy: "Whosoever shall speak against
the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever
shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be
forgiven him."(7) Now, if both the remission and
the retention of sin savour of a judicial God, the
Holy Ghost, who is not to be blasphemed, will belong
to Him, who will not forgive the,
blasphemy; just as He who, in the preceding passage,
was not to be denied, belonged to, Him who would, after
He had killed, also cast into hell. Now, since it is
Christ who averts blasphemy from the Creator, I am
at a loss to know in what manner His adversary.(8)
could have come. Else, if by these sayings He throws
a black cloud of censure(9) over the severity of Him
who will not forgive blasphemy and will kill even to
hell, it follows that the very spirit of that rival
god may be blasphemed with impunity, and his Christ
denied; and that there is no difference, in fact, between
worshipping and despising him; but that, as there
is no punishment for the contempt, so there is no reward
for the worship, which men need expect. When "brought
before magistrates," and examined, He forbids
them "to take thought how they shall answer;"
"for," says He, "the Holy Ghost shall
teach you in that very hour what ye ought to say."(10)
If such an injunction(11) as this comes from the Creator,
the precept will only be His by whom an example was
previously given. The prophet Balaam, in Numbers, when
sent forth by king Balak to curse lsrael, with whom
he was commencing war, was at the same moment(12) filled
with the Spirit. Instead of the curse which he was
come to pronounce, he uttered the blessing which the
Spirit at that very hour inspired him with; having
previously declared to the king's messengers, and then
to the king himself, that he could only speak forth
that which God should put into his mouth.(13) The novel
doctrines of the new Christ are such as the Creator's
servants initiated long before! But see how clear a
difference there is between the example of Moses and
of Christ.(14) Moses voluntarily interferes with brothers(15)
who were quarrelling, and chides the offender: "Wherefore
smitest thou thy fellow?" He is, however, rejected
by him: "Who made thee a prince or a judge over
us?"(16) Christ, on the contrary, when requested
by a certain man to compose a strife between him and
his brother about dividing an inheritance, refused
His assistance, although in so honest a cause. Well,
then, my Moses is better than your Christ, aiming as
he did at the peace of brethren, and obviating their
wrong. But of course the case must be different with
Christ, for he is the Christ of the simply good and
non-judicial god. "Who," says he, "made
me a judge over you?"(17)
No other word of excuse was he able to find,

397

without using(1) that with which the wicked, man and
impious brother had rejected(2) the defender of probity
and piety! In short, he approved of the excuse, although
a bad one, by his use of it; and of the act, although
a bad one, by his refusal to make peace between brothers.
Or rather, would He not show His resentment(3) at the
rejection of Moses with such a word? And therefore
did He not wish in a similar case of contentious brothers,
to confound them with the recollection of so harsh
a word? Clearly so. For He had Himself been present
in Moses, who heard such a rejection--even He, the
Spirit of the Creator.(4) I think that we have already,
in another passage,(5) sufficiently shown that the
glory of riches is condemned by our God, "who
putteth down the mighty from their throne, and exalts
the poor from the dunghill."(6) From Him, therefore,
will proceed the parable of the rich man, who flattered
himself about the increase of his fields, and to Whom
God said: "Thou fool, this night shall they require
thy soul of thee; then whose shall those things be
which thou hast provided?"(7) It was just in the
like manner that the king Hezekiah heard from Isaiah
the sad doom of his kingdom, when he gloried, before
the envoys of Babylon,(8) in his treasures and the
deposits of his precious things.(9)

CHAP. XXIX.--PARALLELS FROM THE PROPHETS TO ILLUSTRATE
CHRIST'S TEACHING IN THE REST OF THIS CHAPTER OF ST.
LUKE. THE STERNER ATTRIBUTES OF CHRIST, IN HIS JUDICIAL
CAPACITY, SHOW HIM TO HAVE COME FROM THE CREATOR. INCIDENTAL
REBUKES OF MARCION'S DOCTRINE OF CELIBACY, AND OF HIS
ALTERING OF THE TEXT OF THE GOSPEL.

Who would be unwilling that we should distress ourselves(10)
about sustenance for our life, or clothing for our
body,(11) but He who has provided these things already
for man; and who, therefore, while distributing them
to us, prohibits all anxiety respecting them as an
outrage(12) against his liberality?--who has adapted
the nature of "life" itself to a condition
"better than meat," and has fashioned the
material of "the body," so as to make it
"more than raiment;" whose "ravens,
too,

neither sow nor reap, nor gather into storehouses, and
are yet fed" by Himself; whose "lilies and
grass also toil not, nor spin, and yet are clothed"
by Him; whose "Solomon, moreover, was transcendent
in glory, and yet was not arrayed like" the humble
flower.(13) Besides, nothing can be more abrupt than
that one God should be distributing His bounty, while
the other should bid us take no thought about (so kindly
a) distribution--and that, too, with the intention
of derogating (from his liberality). Whether, indeed,
it is as depreciating the Creator that he does not
wish such trifles to be thought of, concerning which
neither the crows nor the lilies labour, because, forsooth,
they come spontaneously to hand(14) by reason of their
very worthlessness,(15) will appear a little further
on. Meanwhile, how is it that He chides them as being
"of little faith?"(16) What faith? Does He
mean that faith which they were as yet unable to manifest
perfectly in a god who has hardly yet revealed,(17)
and whom they were in process of learning as well as
they could; or that faith which they for this express
reason owed to the Creator, because they believed that
He was of His own will supplying these wants of the
human race, and therefore took no thought about them?
Now, when He adds, "For all these things do the
nations of the world seek after,"(18) even by
their not believing in God as the Creator and Giver
of all things, since He was unwilling that they should
be like these nations, He therefore upbraided them
as being defective of faith in the same God, in whom
He remarked that the Gentiles were quite wanting in
faith. When He further adds, "But your Father
knoweth that ye have need of these things,"(19)
I would first ask, what Father Christ would have to
be here understood? If He points to their own Creator,
He also affirms Him to be good, who knows what His
children have need of; but if He refers to that other
god, how does he know that food and raiment are necessary
to man, seeing that he has made no such pro vision
for him? For if he had known the want, he would have
made the provision. If, however, he knows what things
man has need of, and yet has failed to supply them,
he is in the failure guilty of either malignity or
weakness. But when he confessed that these things are
necessary to man, he really affirmed that they are
good. For nothing that is evil is necessary. So that
he will not be any longer

398

a depreciator of the works and the indulgences of the
Creator, that I may here complete the answer(1) which
I deferred giving above. Again, if it is another god
who has foreseen man's wants, and is supplying them,
how is it that Marcion's Christ himself promises them?(2)
Is he liberal with another's property?(3) "Seek
ye," says he, "the kingdom of God, and all
these things shall be added unto you"--by himself,
of course. But if by himself, what sort of being is
he, who shall bestow the things of another? If by the
Creator, whose all things are, then who(4) is he that
promises what belongs to another? If these things are
"additions" to the kingdom, they must be
placed in the second rank;(5) and the second rank belongs
to Him to whom the first also does; His are the food
and raiment, whose is the kingdom. Thus to the Creator
belongs the entire promise, the full reality(6) of
its parables, the perfect equalization(7) of its similitudes;
for these have respect to none other than Him to whom
they have a parity of relation in every point.(8) We
are servants because we have a Lord in our God. We
ought "to have our loins girded:"(9) in other
words, we are to be free from the embarrassments of
a perplexed and much occupied life; "to have our
lights burning,"(10) that is, our minds kindled
by faith, and resplendent with the works of truth.
And thus "to wait for our Lord,"(11) that
is, Christ. Whence "returning?" If "from
the wedding," He is the Christ of the Creator,
for the wedding is His. If He is not the Creator's,
not even Marcion himself would have gone to the wedding,
although invited, for in his god he discovers one who
hates the nuptial bed. The parable would therefore
have failed in the person of the Lord, if He were not
a Being to whom a wedding is consistent. In the next
parable also he makes a flagrant mistake, when he assigns
to the person of the Creator that "thief, whose
hour, if the father of the family had only known, he
would not have suffered his house to be broken through."(12)
How can the Creator wear in any way the aspect of a
thief, Lord as He is of all mankind? No one pilfers
or plunders his own property, but he(13) rather acts
the part of one who swoops down on the things of another,
and alienates man from his Lord.(14) Again, when He
indicates to us that the devil is "the thief,"
whose hour at the very beginning of the world, if man
had known, he would never have been broken in upon(15)
by him, He warns us "to be ready," for this
reason, because "we know not the hour when the
Son of man shall come"(16)--not as if He were
Himself the thief, but rather as being the judge of
those who prepared not themselves, and used no precaution
against the thief. Since, then, He is the Son of man,
I hold Him to be the Judge, and in the Judge I claim(17)
the Creator. If then in this passage he displays the
Creator's Christ under the title "Son of man,"
that he may give us some presage(18) of the thief,
of the period of whose coming we are ignorant, you
still have it ruled above, that no one is the thief
of his own property; besides which, there is our principle
also unimpaired(19)--that in as far as He insists on
the Creator as an object of fear, in so far does He
belong to the Creator, and does the Creator's work.
When, therefore, Peter asked whether He had spoken
the parable "unto them, or even to all,"(20)
He sets forth for them, and for all who should bear
rule in the churches, the similitude of stewards.(21)
That steward who should treat his fellow-servants well
in his Lord's absence, would on his return be set as
ruler over all his property; but he who should act
otherwise should be severed, and have his portion with
the unbelievers, when his lord should return on the
day when he looked not for him, at the hour when he
was not aware(22)--even that Son of man, the Creator's
Christ, not a thief, but a Judge. He accordingly, in
this passage, either presents to us the Lord as a Judge,
and instructs us in His character,(23) or else as the
simply good god; if the latter, he now also affirms
his judicial attribute, although the heretic refuses
to admit it. For an attempt is made to modify this
sense when it is applied to his god,--as if it were
an act of serenity and mildness simply to sever the
man off, and to assign him a portion with the unbelievers,
under the idea that he was not summoned (before the
judge), but only returned to his own state! As if this
very process did not imply a judicial act! What folly!
What will be the end of i the severed ones? Will it
not be the for feiture of salvation, since their separation
will be from those who shall attain salvation? What,
again, will be the condition of the un-

399

believers? Will it not be damnation? Else, if these
severed and unfaithful ones shall have nothing to suffer,
there will, on the other hand, be nothing for the accepted
and the believers to obtain. If, however, the accepted
and the believers shall attain salvation, it must needs
be that the rejected and the unbelieving should incur
the opposite issue, even the loss of salvation. Now
here is a judgment, and He who holds it out before
us belongs to the Creator. Whom else than the God of
retribution can I understand by Him who shall "beat
His servants with stripes," either "few or
many," and shall exact from them what He had committed
to them? Whom is it suitable(1) for me to obey, but
Him who remunerates? Your Christ proclaims, "I
am come to send fire on the earth."(2) That(3)
most lenient being, the lord who has no hell, not long
before had restrained his disciples from demanding
fire on the churlish village. Whereas He(4) burnt up
Sodom and Gomorrah with a tempest of fire. Of Him the
psalmist sang, "A fire shall go out before Him,
and burn up His enemies round about."(5) By Hoses
He uttered the threat, "I will send a fire upon
the cities of Judah;"(6) and(7) by Isaiah, "A
fire has been kindled in mine anger." He cannot
lie. If it is not He who uttered His voice out of even
the burning bush, it can be of no importance(8) what
fire you insist upon being understood. Even if it be
but figurative fire, yet, from the very fact that he
takes from my element illustrations for His own sense,
He is mine, because He uses what is mine. The similitude
of fire must belong to Him who owns the reality thereof.
But He will Himself best explain the quality of that
fire which He mentioned, when He goes on to say, "Suppose
ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you,
Nay; but rather division."(9) It is written "a
sword,"(10) but Marcion makes an emendation(11)
of the word, just as if a division were not the work
of the sword. He, therefore, who refused to give peace,
intended also the fire of destruction. As is the combat,
so is the burning. As is the sword, so is the flame.
Neither is suitable for its lord. He says at last,
"The father shall be divided against the son,
and the son against the father; the mother against
the daughter, and the daughter against the mother;
the mother-in-law against the daughter-in-law, and
the daughter-in-law against the mother-in-law."(12)
Since this battle among the relatives(13) was sung
by the prophet's trumpet in the very words, I fear
that Micah(14) must have predicted it to Marcion's
Christ! On this account He pronounced them "hypocrites,"
because they could "discern the face of the sky
and the earth, but could not distinguish this time,"(15)
when of course He ought to have been recognised, fulfilling
(as he was) all things which had been predicted concerning
them, and teaching them so. But then who could know
the times of him of whom he had no evidence to prove
his existence? Justly also does He upbraid them for
"not even of themselves judging what is right."(16)
Of old does He command by Zechariah, "Execute
the judgment of truth and peace;"(17) by Jeremiah,
"Execute judgment and righteousness;"(18)
by Isaiah, "Judge the fatherless, plead for the
widow,"(19) charging it as a fault upon the vine
of Sorech,(20) that when "He looked for righteousness
therefrom, there was only a cry"(21) (of oppression).
The same God who had taught them to act as He commanded
them,(22) was now requiring that they should act of
their own accord.(23) He who had sown the precept,
was now pressing to an abundant harvest from it. But
how absurd, that he should now be commanding them to
judge righteously, who was destroying God the righteous
Judge! For the Judge, who commits to prison, and allows
no release Out of it without the payment of "the
very last mite,"(24) they treat of in the person
of the Creator, with the view of disparaging Him. Which
cavil, however, I deem it necessary to meet with the
same answer.(25) For as often as the Creator's severity
is paraded before us, so often is Christ (shown to
be) His, to whom
He urges submission by the motive of fear.

400

CHAP. XXX.--PARABLES OF THE MUSTARD-SEED, AND OF THE
LEAVEN. TRANSITION TO THE SOLEMN EXCLUSION WHICH WILL
ENSUE WHEN THE MASTER OF THE HOUSE HAS SHUT THE DOOR.
THIS JUDICIAL EXCLUSION WILL BE ADMINISTERED BY CHRIST,
WHO IS SHOWN THEREBY TO POSSESS THE ATTRIBUTE OF THE
CREATOR.

When the question was again raised concerning a
cure performed on the Sabbath-day, how did He discuss
it: "Doth not each of you on the Sabbath loose
his ass or his ox from the stall, and lead him away
to watering?"(1) When, therefore, He did a work
according to the condition prescribed by the law, He
affirmed, instead of breaking, the law, which commanded
that no work should be done, except what might be done
for any living being;(2) and if for any one, then how
much more for a human life? In the case of the parables,
it is allowed that I(3) everywhere require a congruity.
"The kingdom of God," says He, "is like
a grain of mustard-seed which a man took and cast into
his garden." Who must be understood as meant by
the man? Surely Christ, because (although Marcion's)
he was called "the Son of man." He received
from the Father the seed of the kingdom, that is, the
word of the gospel, and sowed it in his garden--in
the world, of course(4)--in man at the present day,
for instance.(5) Now, whereas it is said, "in
his garden," but neither the world nor man is
his property, but the Creator's, therefore He who sowed
seed in His own ground is shown to be the Creator.
Else, if, to evade this snare,(6) they should choose
to transfer the person of the man from Christ to any
person who receives the seed of the kingdom and sows
it in the garden of his own heart, not even this meaning(7)
would suit any other than the Creator. For how happens
it, if the kingdom belong to the most lenient god,
that it is closely followed up by a fervent judgment,
the severity of which brings weeping?(8) With regard,
indeed, to the following similitude, I have my fears
lest it should somehow(9) presage the kingdom of the
rival god! For He compared it, not to the unleavened
bread which the Creator is more familiar with, but
to leaven.(10) Now this is a capital conjecture for
men who are begging for arguments. I must, however,
on my side, dispel one fond conceit by another,"(11)
and contend with even leaven is suitable for the kingdom
of the Creator, because after it comes the oven, or,
if you please,(12) the furnace of hell. How often has
He already displayed Himself as a Judge, and in the
Judge the Creator? How often, indeed, has He repelled,
and in the repulse condemned? In the present passage,
for instance, He says, "When once the master of
the house is risen up;"(13) but in what sense
except that in which Isaiah said, "When He ariseth
to shake terribly the earth?"(14) "And hath
shut to the door," thereby shutting out the wicked,
of course; and when these knock, He will answer, "I
know you not whence ye are;" and when they recount
how "they have eaten and drunk in His presence,"
He will further say to them, "Depart from me,
all ye workers of iniquity; there shall be weeping
and gnashing of teeth."(15) But where? Outside,
no doubt, when they shall have been excluded with the
door shut on them by Him. There will therefore be punishment
inflicted by Him who excludes for punishment, when
they shall behold the righteous entering the kingdom
of God, but themselves detained without. By whom detained
outside? If by the Creator, who shall be within receiving
the righteous into the kingdom? The good God. What,
therefore, is the Creator about,(16) that He should
detain outside for punishment those whom His adversary
shut out, when He ought rather to have kindly received
them, if they must come into His hands,(17) for the
greater irritation of His rival? But when about to
exclude the wicked, he must, of course, either be aware
that the Creator would detain them for punishment,
or not be aware. Consequently either the wicked will
be detained by the Creator against the will of the
excluder, in which case he will be inferior to the
Creator, submitting to Him unwillingly; or else, if
the process is carried out with his will, then he himself
has judicially determined its execution; and then he
who is the very originator of the Creator's infamy,
will not prove to be one whit better than the Creator.
Now, if these ideas be incompatible with reason--of
one being supposed to punish, and the other to liberate--then
to one only power will appertain both the judgment
and the kingdom and while they both belong to one,
He who executeth judgment can be none else than the
Christ of the Creator.

CHAP. XXXI.--CHRIST'S ADVICE TO INVITE THE POOR IN ACCORDANCE
WITH ISAIAH. THE PARABLE OF THE GREAT SUPPER A PICTORIAL
SKETCH OF THE CREATOR'S OWN DISPENSATIONS OF MERCY
AND GRACE. THE REJECTIONS OF THE INVITATION PARALLELED
BY QUOTATIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT MARCION'S CHRIST
COULD NOT FULFIL THE CONDITIONS INDICATED IN THIS PARABLE
THE ABSURDITY OF THE MARCIONITE INTERPRETATION.

What kind of persons does He bid should be invited
to a dinner or a supper?(1) Precisely such as he had
pointed out by Isaiah: "Deal thy bread to the
hungry man; and the beggars--even such as have no home--bring
in to thine house,"(2) because, no doubt, they
are "unable to recompense" your act of humanity.
Now, since Christ forbids the recompense to be expected
now, but promises it "at the resurrection,"
this is the very plan(3) of the Creator, who dislikes
those who love gifts and follow after reward. Consider
also to which deity(4) is better suited the parable
of him who issued invitations: "A certain man
made a great supper, and bade many."(5) The preparation
for the supper is no doubt a figure of the abundant
provision(6) of eternal life. I first remark, that
strangers, and persons unconnected by ties of relationship,
are not usually invited to a supper; but that members
of the household and family are more frequently the
favoured guests. To the Creator, then, it belonged
to give the invitation, to whom also appertained those
who were to be invited --whether considered as men,
through their descent from Adam, or as Jews, by reason
of their fathers; not to him who possessed no claim
to them either by nature or prerogative. My next remark
is,(7) if He issues the invitations who has prepared
the supper, then, in this sense the supper is the Creator's,
who sent to warn the guests. These had been indeed
previously invited by the fathers, but were to be
admonished by the prophets. It certainly is not the
feast of him who never sent a messenger to warn--who
never did a thing before towards issuing an invitation,
but came down himself on a sudden--only then(8) beginning
to be known, when already(9) giving his invitation;
only then inviting, when already compelling to his
banquet; appointing one and the same hour both for
the supper and the invitation. But when invited, they
excuse themselves? And fairly enough, if the invitation
came from the other god, because it was so sudden;
if, however, the excuse was not a fair one, then the
invitation was not a sudden one. Now, if the invitation
was not a sudden one, it must have been given by the
Creator--even by Him of old time, whose call they had
at last refused. They first refused it when they said
to Aaron, "Make us gods, which shall go before
us;(10) and again, afterwards, when "they heard
indeed with the ear, but did not understand"(11)
their calling of God. In a manner most germane(12)
I to this parable, He said by Jeremiah: "Obey
my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my
people; and ye shall walk in all my ways, which I have
commanded you."(13) This is the invitation of
God. "But," says He, "they hearkened
not, nor inclined their ear."(14) This is the
refusal of the people. "They departed, and walked
every one in the imagination of their evil heart."(15)
"I have bought a field--and I have bought some
oxen--and I have married a wife."(16) And still
He urges them: "I have sent unto you all my servants
the prophets, rising early even before day-light."(17)
The Holy Spirit is here meant, the admonisher of the
guests. "Yet my people hearkened not unto me,
nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck."(18)
This was reported to the Master of the family. Then
He was moved (He did well to be moved; for, as Marcion
denies emotion to his god, He must be therefore my
God), and commanded them to invite out of "the
streets and lanes of the city."(19) Let us see
whether this is not the same in purport as His words
by Jeremiah: "Have I been a wilderness to the
house of Israel, or a land left uncultivated?"(20)
That is to say: "Then have I none whom I may call
to me; have I no place whence I may bring them?"
"Since my people have said, We will come no more
unto thee."(21) Therefore He sent out to call
others, but from the same city.(22) My third remark
is this,(23) that although the place abounded with
people, He yet commanded that they gather men from
the highways and the hedges. In other words, we are
now gathered out of the

402

Gentile strangers; with that jealous resentment, no
doubt, which He expressed in Deuteronomy: "I will
hide my face from them, and I will show them what shall
happen in the last days(1) (how that others shall possess
their place); for they are a froward generation, children
in whom is no faith. They have moved me to jealousy
by that which is no god, and they have provoked me
to anger with. their idols; and I will move them to
jealousy with those which are not a people: I will
provoke them to anger with a foolish nation"(2)--even
with us, whose hope the Jews still entertain.(3) But
this hope the Lord says they should not realize;(4)
"Sion being left as a cottages(5) in a vineyard,
as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers,"(6) since
the nation rejected the latest invitation to Christ.
(Now, I ask,) after going through all this course of
the Creator's dispensation and prophecies, what there
is in it which can possibly be assigned to him who
has done all his work at one hasty stroke,(7) and possesses
neither the Creator's(8) course nor His dispensation
in harmony with the parable? Or, again in what will
consist his first invitation,(9) and what his admonition(10)
at the second stage? Some at first would surely decline;
others afterwards must have accepted."(11) But
now he comes to invite both parties promiscuously out
of the city,(12) out of the hedges,(13) contrary to
the drift(14) of the parable. It is impossible for
him now to condemn as scorners of his invitation(15)
those whom he has never yet invited, and whom he is
approaching with so much earnestness. If, however,
he condemns them beforehand as about to reject his
call, then beforehand he also predicts(16) the election
of the Gentiles in their stead. Certainly(17) he means
to come the second time for the very purpose of preaching
to the heathen. But even if he does mean to come again,
I imagine it will not be with the intention of any
longer inviting guests, but of giving to them their
places. Meanwhile, you who interpret the call to this
supper as an invitation to a heavenly banquet of spiritual
satiety and pleasure, must remember that the earthly
promises also of wine and oil and corn, and even of
the city, are equally employed by the Creator as figures
of spiritual things.

CHAP. XXXII.--A SORT OF SORITES, AS THE LOGICIANS CALL
IT, TO SHOW THAT THE PARABLES OF THE LOST SHEEP AND
THE LOST DRACHMA HAVE NO SUITABLE APPLICATION TO THE
CHRIST OF MARCION.

WhO sought after the lost sheep and the lost piece
of silver?(18) Was it not the loser? But who was the
loser? Was it not he who once possessed(19) them? Who,
then, was that? Was it not he to whom they belonged?(20)
Since, then, man is the property of none other than
the Creator, He possessed Him who owned him; He lost
him who once possessed him; He sought him who lost
him; He found him who sought him; He rejoiced who found
him. Therefore the purport(21) of neither parable has
anything whatever to do with him(22) to whom belongs
neither the sheep nor the piece of silver, that is
to say, man. For he lost him not, because he possessed
him not; and he sought him not, because he lost him
not; and he found him not, because he sought him not;
and he rejoiced not, because he found him not. Therefore,
to rejoice over the sinner's repentance--that is, at
the recovery of lost man--is the attribute of Him who
long ago professed that He would rather that the sinner
should repent and not die.

CHAP. XXXIII.--THE MARCIONITE INTERPRETATION OF GOD
AND MAMMON REFUTED. THE PROPHETS JUSTIFY CHRIST'S ADMONITION
AGAINST COVETOUSNESS AND PRIDE. JOHN BAPTIST THE LINK
BETWEEN THE OLD AND THE NEW DISPENSATIONS OF THE CREATOR.
SO SAID CHRIST--BUT SO ALSO HAD ISAIAH SAID LONG BEFORE.
ONE ONLY GOD, THE CREATOR, BY HIS OWN WILL CHANGED
THE DISPENSATIONS.NO NEW GOD HAD A HAND IN THE CHANGE

What the two masters are who, He says, cannot be
served,(23) on the ground that while one is pleased(24)
the other must needs be displeased,(25) He Himself
makes clear, when He mentions God and mammon. Then,
if you have no interpreter by you, you may learn

403

again from Himself what He would have understood by
mammon.(1) For when advising us to provide for ourselves
the help of friends in worldly affairs, after the example
of that steward who, when removed from his office,(2)
relieves his lord's debtors by lessening their debts
with a view to their recompensing him with their help,
He said, "And I say unto you, Make to yourselves
friends of the mammon of unrighteousness," that
is to say, of money, even as the steward had done.
Now we are all of us aware that money is the instigator(3)
of unrighteousness, and the lord of the whole world.
Therefore, when he saw the covetousness of the Pharisees
doing servile worship(4) to it, He hurled(5) this sentence
against them, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon."(6)
Then the Pharisees, who were covetous of riches, derided
Him, when they understood that by mammon He meant money.
Let no one think that under the word mammon the Creator
was meant, and that Christ called them off from the
service of the Creator. What folly! Rather learn therefrom
that one God was pointed out by Christ. For they were
two masters whom He named, God and mammon--the Creator
and money. You cannot indeed serve God--Him, of course
whom they seemed to serve--and mammon to whom they
preferred to devote themselves.(7) If, however, he
was giving himself out as another god, it would not
be two masters, but three, that he had pointed out.
For the Creator was a master, and much more of a master,
to be sure,(8) than mammon, and more to be adored,
as being more truly our Master. Now, how was it likely
that He who had called mammon a master, and had associated
him with God, should say nothing of Him who was really
the Master of even these, that is, the Creator? Or
else, by this silence respecting Him did He concede
that service might be rendered to Him, since it was
to Himself alone and to mammon that He said service
could not be (simultaneously) rendered? When, therefore,
He lays down the position that God is one, since He
would have been sure to mention(9) the Creator if He
were Himself a rival(10) to Him, He did (virtually)
name the Creator, when He refrained from insisting"(11)
that He was Master alone, without a rival god. Accordingly,
this will throw light upon the sense in which it was
said, "If ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous
mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?"(12)
"In the unrighteous mammon," that is to say,
in unrighteous riches, not in the Creator; for even
Marcion allows Him to be righteous: "And if ye
have not been faithful in that which is another man's,
who will give to you that which is mine?"(13)
For what-
ever is unrighteous ought to be foreign to the servants
of God. But in what way was the Creator foreign to
the Pharisees, seeing that He was the proper God of
the Jewish nation? Forasmuch then as the words, "Who
will entrust to you the truer riches?" and, "Who
will give you that which is mine?" are only suitable
to the Creator and not to mammon, He could not have
uttered them as alien to the Creator, and in the interest
of the rival god. He could only seem to have spoken
them in this sense, if, when remarking(14) their unfaithfulness
to the Creator and not to mammon, He had drawn some
distinctions between the Creator (in his manner of
mentioning Him) and the rival god--how that the latter
would not commit his own truth to those who were unfaithful
to the Creator. How then can he possibly seem to belong
to another god, if He be not set forth, with the express
intention of being separated(15) from the very thing
which is in question. But when the Pharisees "justified
themselves before men," 16) and placed their hope
of reward in man, He censured them in the sense in
which the prophet Jeremiah said, "Cursed is the
man that trust-eth in man." (17) Since the prophet
went on to say, "But the Lord knoweth your hearts,"(18)
he magnified the power of that God who declared Himself
to be as a lamp, "searching the reins and the
heart."(19) When He strikes at pride in the words:
"That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination
in the sight of God,"(20) He recalls Isaiah: "For
the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one
that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is
arrogant and lifted up, and they shall be brought low."(21)
I can now make out

404

why Marcion's god was for so long an age concealed.
He was, I suppose, waiting until he had learnt all
these things from the Creator. He continued his pupillage
up to the time of John, and then proceeded forthwith
to announce the kingdom of God, saying: "The law
and the prophets were until John; since that time the
kingdom of God is proclaimed."(1) Just as if we
also did not recognise in John a certain limit placed
between the old dispensation and the new, at which
Judaism ceased and Christianity began--without, however,
supposing that it was by the power of another god that
there came about a cessation(2) of the law and the
prophets and the commencement of that gospel in which
is the kingdom of God, Christ Himself. For although,
as we have shown, the Creator foretold that the old
state of things would pass away and a new state would
succeed, yet, inasmuch as John is shown to be both
the forerunner and the pre-pater of the ways of that
Lord who was to introduce the gospel and publish the
kingdom of God, it follows from the very fact that
John has come, that Christ must be that very Being
who was to follow His harbinger John. So that, if the
old course has ceased and the new has begun, with John
intervening between them, there will be nothing wonderful
in it, because it happens according to the purpose
of the Creator; so that you may get a better proof
for the kingdom of God from any quarter, however anomalous,(3)
than from the conceit that the law and the prophets
ended in John, and a new state of things began after
him. "More easily, therefore, may heaven and earth
pass away--as also the law and the prophets--than that
one tittle of the Lord's words should fail."(4)
"For," as says Isaiah: "the word of
our God shall stand for ever."(5) Since even then
by Isaiah it was Christ, the Word and Spirit(6) of
the Creator, who prophetically described John as "the
voice of one crying in the wilderness to prepare the
way of the Lord,"(7) and as about to come for
the purpose of terminating thenceforth the course of
the law and the prophets; by their fulfilment and not
their extinction, and in order that the kingdom of
God might be announced by Christ, He therefore purposely
added the assurance that the elements would more easily
pass away than His words fail; affirming, as He did,
the further fact, that what He had said concerning
John had not fallen to the ground.

CHAP. XXXIV.--MOSES, ALLOWING DIVORCE, AND CHRIST PROHIBITING
IT, EXPLAINED. JOHN BAPTIST AND HEROD. MARCION'S ATTEMPT
TO DISCOVER AN ANTITHESIS IN THE PARABLE OF THE RICH
MAN AND THE POOR MAN IN HADES CONFUTED. THE CREATOR'S
APPOINTMENT MANIFESTED IN BOTH STATES.

But Christ prohibits divorce, saying, "Whosoever
putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth
adultery; and whosoever marrieth her that is put away
from her husband, also committeth adultery."(8)
In order to forbid divorce, He makes it unlawful to
marry a woman that has been put away. Moses, however,
permitted repudiation m Deuteronomy: "When a man
hath taken a wife, and hath lived with her, and it
come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because
he hath found unchastity in her; then let him write
her a bill of divorcement and give it in her hand,
and send her away out of his house."(9) You see,
therefore, that there is a difference between the law
and the gospel- between Moses and Christ?(10) To be
sure there is!(11) But then you have rejected that
other gospel which witnesses to the same verity and
the same Christ.(12) There, while prohibiting divorce,
He has given us a solution of this special question
respecting it: "Moses," says He, "because
of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to give
a bill of divorcement; but from the beginning it was
not so"(13)--for this reason, indeed, because
He who had "made them male and female" had
likewise said, "They twain shall become one flesh;
what therefore God hath joined together, let not man
put asunder."(14) Now, by this answer of His (to
the Pharisees), He both sanctioned the provision of
Moses, who was His own (servant), and restored to its
primitive purpose(15) the institution of the Creator,
whose Christ He was. Since, however, you are to be
refuted out of the Scriptures which you have received,
I will meet you on your own ground, as if your Christ
were mine. When, therefore, He prohibited divorce,
and yet at the same time represented(16) the Father,
even Him who united male and female, must He not have
rather exculpated(17) than abolished the enactment
of Moses? But, observe, if this Christ be yours when
he teaches contrary to Moses and the Creator, on the
same principle must He be mine if I can show that

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His teaching is not contrary to them. I maintain, then,
that there was a condition in the prohibition which
He now made of divorce; the case supposed being, that
a man put away his wife for the express purpose of(1)
marrying another. His words are: "Whosoever putteth
away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery;
and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her
husband, also committeth adultery,"(2)--"put
away," that is, for the reason wherefore a woman
ought not to be dismissed, that another wife may be
obtained. For he who marries a woman who is unlawfully
put away is as much of an adulterer as the man who
marries one who is un-divorced. Permanent is the marriage
which is not rightly dissolved; to marry,(3) therefore,
whilst matrimony is undissolved, is to commit adultery.
Since, therefore, His prohibition of divorce was a
conditional one, He did not prohibit absolutely; and
what He did not absolutely forbid, that He permitted
on some occasions,(4) when there is an absence of the
cause why He gave His prohibition. In very deed(5)
His teaching is not contrary to Moses, whose precept
He partially(6) defends, I will not(7) say confirms.
If, however, you deny that divorce is in any way permitted
by Christ, how is it that you on your side(8) destroy
marriage, not uniting man and woman, nor admitting
to the sacrament of baptism and of the eucharist those
who have been united in marriage anywhere else,(9)
unless they should agree together to repudiate the
fruit of their marriage, and so the very Creator Himself?
Well, then, what is a husband to do in your sect,(10)
if his wife commit adultery? Shall he keep her? But
your own apostle, you know,(11) does not permit "the
members of Christ to be joined to a harlot."(12)
Divorce, therefore, when justly deserved,(13) has even
in Christ a defender. So that Moses for the future
must be considered as being confirmed by Him, since
he prohibits divorce in the same sense as Christ does,
if any unchastity should occur in the wife. For in
the Gospel of Matthew he says, "Whosoever shall
put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication,
causeth her to commit adultery."(14) He also is
deemed equally guilty of adultery, who marries a woman
put away by her husband. The Creator, however, except
on account of adultery, does not put asunder what He
Himself joined together, the same Moses in another
passage enacting that he who had married after violence
to a damsel, should thenceforth not have it in his
power to put away his wife.(15) Now, if a compulsory
marriage contracted after violence shall be permanent,
how much rather shall a voluntary one, the result of
agreement! This has the sanction of the prophet: "Thou
shalt not forsake the wife of thy youth."(16)
Thus you have Christ following spontaneously the tracks
of the Creator everywhere, both in permitting divorce
and in for-bidding it. You find Him also protecting
marriage, in whatever direction you try to escape.
He prohibits divorce when He will have the marriage
inviolable; He permits divorce when the marriage is
spotted with unfaithfulness. You should blush when
you refuse to unite those whom even your Christ has
united; and repeat the blush when you disunite them
without the good reason why your Christ would have
them separated. I have(17) now to show whence the Lord
derived this decision(18) of His, and to what end He
directed it. It will thus become more fully evident
that His object was not the abolition of the Mosaic
ordinance(19) by any suddenly devised proposal of divorce;
because it was not suddenly proposed, but had its root
in the previously mentioned John. For John reproved
Herod, because he had illegally married the wife of
his deceased brother, who had a daughter by her (a
union which the law permitted only on the one occasion
of the brother dying childless,(20) when it even prescribed
such a marriage, in order that by his own brother,
and from his own wife,(21) seed might be reckoned to
the deceased husband),(22) and was in consequence cast
into prison, and finally, by the same Herod, was even
put to death. The Lord having therefore made mention
of John, and of course of the occurrence of his death,
hurled His censure(23) against Herod in the form of
unlawful marriages and of adultery, pronouncing as
an adulterer even the man who married a woman that
had been put away from her husband. This he said in
order the more severely to load Herod with guilt, who
had taken his brother's wife, after she had been loosed
from her husband not less by death than by divorce;
who had been impelled

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thereto by his lust, not by the prescription of the
(Levirate) law--for, as his brother had left a daughter,
the marriage with the widow could not be lawful on
that very account;(1) and who, when the prophet asserted
against him the law, had therefore put him to death.
The remarks I have advanced on this case will be also
of use to me in illustrating the subsequent parable
of the rich man(2) tormented in hell, and the poor
man resting in Abraham's bosom.(3) For this passage,
so far as its letter goes, comes before us abruptly;
but if we regard its sense and purport, it naturally(4)
fits in with the mention of John wickedly slain, and
of Herod, who had been condemned by him for his impious
marriage.(5) It sets forth in bold outline(6) the end
of both of them, the "torments" of Herod
and the "comfort" of John, that even now
Herod might hear that warning: "They have there
Moses and the prophets, let them hear them."(7)
Marcion, however, violently turns the passage to another
end, and decides that both the torment and the comfort
are retributions of the Creator reserved in the next
life(8) for those who have obeyed the law and the prophets;
whilst he defines the heavenly bosom and harbour to
belong to Christ and his own god. Our answer to this
is, that the Scripture itself which dazzles(9) his
sight expressly distinguishes between Abraham's bosom,
where the poor man dwells, and the infernal place of
torment. "Hell" (I take it) means one thing,
and "Abraham's bosom" another. "A great
gulf." is said to separate those regions, and
to hinder a passage from one to the other. Besides,
the rich man could not have "lifted up his eyes,"(10)
and from a distance too, except to a superior height,
and from the said distance all up through the vast
immensity of height and depth. It must therefore be
evident to every man of intelligence who has ever heard
of the Elysian fields, that there is some determinate
place called Abraham's bosom, and that it is designed
for the reception of the souls of Abraham's children,
even from among the Gentiles (since he is "the
father of many nations," which must be classed
amongst his family), and of the same faith as that
wherewithal he himself believed God, without the yoke
of the law and the sign of circumcision. This region,
therefore, I call Abraham's bosom. Although it is not
in heaven, it is yet higher than hell,(11) and is appointed
to afford an interval of rest to the souls of the righteous,
until the consummation of all things shall complete
the resurrection of all men with the "full recompense
of their reward."(12) This consummation will then
be manifested in heavenly promises, which Marcion,
however, claims for his own god, just as if the Creator
had never announced them. Amos, however, tells us of
"those stories towards heaven"(13) which
Christ "builds"--of course for His people.
There also is that everlasting abode of which Isaiah
asks, "Who shall declare unto you the eternal
place, but He (that is, of course, Christ) who walketh
in righteousness, speaketh of the straight path, hateth
injustice and iniquity?"(14) Now, although this
everlasting abode is promised, and the ascending stories
(or steps) to heaven are built by the Creator, who
further promises that the seed of Abraham shall be
even as the stars of heaven, by virtue certainly of
the heavenly promise, why may it not be possible,(15)
without any injury to that promise, that by Abraham's
bosom is meant some temporary receptacle of faithful
souls, wherein is even now delineated an image of the
future, and where is given some foresight of the glory(16)
of both judgments? If so, you have here, O heretics,
during your present lifetime, a warning that Moses
and the prophets declare one only God, the Creator,
and His only Christ, and how that both awards of everlasting
punishment and eternal salvation rest with Him, the
one only God, who kills and who makes alive. Well,
but the admonition, says Marcion, of our God from heaven
has commanded us not to hear Moses and the prophets,
but Christ; Hear Him is the command.(17) This is true
enough. For the apostles had by that time sufficiently
heard Moses and the prophets, for they had followed
Christ, being persuaded by Moses and the prophets.
For even Peter would not have been able(18) to say,
"Thou art the Christ," (19) unless he had
beforehand heard and believed Moses and the prophets,
by whom alone Christ had been hitherto announced. Their
faith, indeed, had deserved this confirmation by such
a voice from heaven as should bid them hear

407

Him, whom they had recognized as preaching peace, announcing
glad tidings, promising an everlasting abode, building
for them steps upwards into heaven.(1) Down in hell,
however, it was said concerning them: "They have
Moses and the prophets; let them hear them!"--event
hose who did not believe them or at least did not sincerely(2)
believe that after death there were punishments for
the arrogance of wealth and the glory of luxury, announced
indeed by Moses and the prophets, but decreed by that
God, who deposes princes from their thrones, and raiseth
up the poor from dunghills.(3) Since, therefore, it
is quite consistent in the Creator to pronounce different
sentences in the two directions of reward and punishment,
we shall have to conclude that there is here no diversity
of gods,(4) but only a difference in the actual matters(5)
before us.

CHAP. XXXV.--THE JUDICIAL SEVERITY OF CHRIST AND THE
TENDERNESS OF THE CREATOR, ASSERTED IN CONTRADICTION
TO MARCION. THE CURE OF THE TEN LEPERS. OLD TESTAMENT
ANALOGIES. THE KINGDOM OF GOD WITHIN YOU; THIS TEACHING
SIMILAR TO THAT OF MOSES. CHRIST, THE STONE REJECTED
BY THE BUILDERS. INDICATIONS OF SEVERITY IN THE
COMING OF CHRIST. PROOFS THAT HE IS NOT THE IMPASSIBLE
BEING MARCION IMAGINED.

Then, turning to His disciples, He says: "Woe
unto him through whom offences come! It were better
for him if he had not been born, or if a millstone
were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the
sea, than that he should offend one of these little
ones,"(6) that is, one of His disciples. Judge,
then, what the sort of punishment is which He so severely
threatens. For it is no stranger who is to avenge the
offence done to His disciples. Recognise also in Him
the Judge, and one too, who expresses Himself on the
safety of His followers with the same tenderness as
that which the Creator long ago exhibited: "He
that toucheth you toucheth the apple of my eye."(7)
Such identity of care proceeds from one and the same
Being. A trespassing brother He will have rebuked.(8)
If one failed in this duty of reproof, he in fact sinned,
either because out of hatred he wished his brother
to continue in sin, or else spared him from mistaken
friendship,(9) although possessing the injunction in
Leviticus: "Thou shalt not hate thy brother in
thine heart; thy neighbor thou shalt seriously rebuke,
and on his account shalt not contract sin."(10)
Nor is it to be wondered at, if He thus teaches who
forbids your refusing to bring back even your brother's
cattle, if you find them astray in the road; much more
should you bring back your erring brother to himself.
He commands you to forgive your brother, should he
trespass against you even "seven times."(11)
But that surely, is a small matter; for with the Creator
there is a larger grace, when He sets no limits to
forgiveness, indefinitely charging you "not to
bear any malice against your brother,"(12) and
to give not merely to him who asks, but even to him
who does not ask. For His will is, not that you should
forgive(13) an offence, but forget it. The law about
lepers had a profound meaning as respects(14) the forms
of the disease itself, and of the inspection by the
high priest.(15) The interpretation of this sense it
will be our task to ascertain. Marcion's labour, however,
is to object to us the strictness(16) of the law, with
the view of maintaining that here also Christ is its
enemy--forestalling(17) its enactments even in His
cure of the ten lepers. These He simply commanded to
show themselves to the priest; "and as they went,
He cleansed them"(18)--without a touch, and without
a word, by His silent power and simple will. Well,
but what necessity was there for Christ, who had been
once for all announced as the healer of our sicknesses
and sins,and had proved Himself such by His acts,(19)
to busy Himself with inquiries(20) into the qualities
and details of cures; or for the Creator to be summoned
to the scrutiny of the law in the person of Christ?
If any pan of this healing was effected by Him in a
way different from the law, He yet Himself did it to
perfection; for surely the Lord may by Himself, or
by His Son, produce after one manner, and after another
manner by His servants the prophets, those proofs of
His power and might especially, which (as excelling
in glory and strength, because they are His own acts)
rightly enough leave in the distance behind them the
works which are done by His servants. But enough

408

has been already said on this point in a former passage.(1)
Now, although He said in a preceding chapter,(2) that
"there were many lepers in lsrael in the days
of Eliseus the prophet, and none of them was cleansed
saving Naaman the Syrian," yet of course the mere
number proves nothing towards a diferenee in the gods,
as tending to the abasement(3) of the Creator in curing
only one, and the pre-eminence of Him who healed ten.
For who can doubt that many might have been cured by
Him who cured one more easily than ten by him who had
never healed one before? But His main purpose in this
declaration was to strike at the unbelief or the pride
of Israel, in that (although there were many lepers
amongst them, and a prophet was not wanting to them)
not one had been moved even by so conspicuous an example
to betake himself to God who was working in His prophets.
Forasmuch, then, as He was Himself the veritable(4)
High Priest of God the Father, He inspected them according
to the hidden purport of the law, which signified that
Christ was the true distinguisher and extinguisher
of the defilements of mankind. However, what was obviously
required by the law He commanded should be done: "Go,"
said He, "show yourselves to the priests."(5)
Yet why this, if He meant to cleanse them first? Was
it as a despiser of the law, in order to prove to them
that, having been cured already on the road, the law
was now nothing to them, nor even the priests? Well,
the matter must of course pass as it best may,(6) if
anybody supposes that Christ had such views as these!(7)
But there are certainly better interpretations to be
found of the passage, and more deserving of belief:
how that they were cleansed on this account, because(8)
they were obedient, and went as the law required, when
they were commanded to go to the priests; and it is
not to be believed that persons who observed the law
could have found a cure from a god that was destroying
the law. Why, however, did He not give such a command
to the leper who first returned?(9) Because Elisha
did not in the case of Naaman the Syrian, and yet was
not on that account less the Creator's agent? This
is a sufficient answer. But the believer knows that
there is a pro-founder reason. Consider, therefore,
the true motives.(10) The miracle was performed in
the district of Samaria, to which country also belonged
one of the lepers.(11) Samaria, however, had revolted
from Israel, carrying with it the disaffected nine
tribes,(12) which, having been alienated(13) by the
prophet Ahijah,(14) Jeroboam settled in Samaria. Besides,
the Samaritans were always pleased with the mountains
and the wells of their ancestors. Thus, in the Gospel
of John, the woman of Samaria, when conversing with
the Lord at the well, says, "No doubt(15) Thou
art greater," etc.; and again, "Our fathers
worshipped in this mountain; but ye say, that in Jerusalem
is the place where men ought to worship."(16)
Accordingly, He who said, "Woe unto them that
trust in the mountain of Samaria,"(17) vouchsafing
now to restore that very region, purposely requests
the men "to go and show themselves to the priests,"
because these were to be found only there where the
temple was; submitting(18) the Samaritan to the Jew,
inasmuch as "salvation was of the Jews,"(19)
whether to the Israelite or the Samaritan. To the tribe
of Judah, indeed, wholly appertained the promised Christ,(20)
in order that men might know that at Jerusalem were
both the priests and the temple; that there also was
the womb(21) of religion, and its living fountain,
not its mere "well."(22) Seeing, therefore,
that they recognised(23) the truth that at Jerusalem
the law was to be fulfilled, He healed them. whose
salvation was to come(24) of faith(25) without the
ceremony of the law. Whence also, astonished that one
only out of the ten was thankful for his release to
the divine grace, He does not command him to offer
a gift according to the law, because he had already
paid his tribute of gratitude when "he glorified
God;(26) for thus did the Lord will that the law's
requirement should be interpreted. And yet who was
the God to whom the Samaritan gave thanks, because
thus far not even had an Israelite heard of another
god? Who else but He by whom all had hitherto been

409

healed through Christ? And therefore it was said to
him, "Thy faith hath made thee whole,"(1)
because he had discovered that it was his duty to render
the true oblation to Almighty God--even thanksgiving--in
His true temple, and before His true High Priest Jesus
Christ. But it is impossible either that the Pharisees
should seem to have inquired of the Lord about the
coming of the kingdom of the rival god, when no other
god has ever yet been announced by Christ; or that
He should have answered them concerning the kingdom
of any other god than Him of whom they were in the
habit of asking Him. "The kingdom of God,"
He says, "cometh not with observation; neither
do they say, La here! or, lo there! for, behold, the
kingdom of God is within you."(2) Now, who will
not interpret the words "within you" to mean
in your hand, within your power, if you hear, and do
the commandment of God? If, however, the kingdom of
God lies in His commandment, set before your mind Moses
on the other side, according to our antitheses, and
you will find the self-same view of the case.(3) "The
commandment is not a lofty one,(4) neither is it far
off from thee. It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest
say, 'Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it
unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?' nor is it
beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, 'Who shall
go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that
we may hear it, and do it ?' But the word is very nigh
unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, and in thy
hands, to do it."(5) This means, "Neither
in this place nor that place is the kingdom of God;
for, behold, it is within you."(6) And if the
heretics, in their audacity, should contend that the
Lord did not give an answer about His own kingdom,
but only about the Creator's kingdom, concerning which
they had inquired, then the following words are against
them. For He tells them that "the Son of man must
suffer many things, and be rejected," before His
coming,(7) at which His kingdom will be really(8) revealed.
In this statement He shows that it was His own kingdom
which His answer to them had contemplated, and which
was now awaiting His own sufferings and rejection.
But having to be rejected and afterwards to be acknowledged,
and taken up(9) and glorified, He borrowed the very
word "rejected" from the passage, where,
under the figure of a stone, His twofold manifestation
was celebrated by David--the first in rejection, the
second in honour: "The stone," says He, "which
the builders rejected, is become the head-stone of
the corner. This is the Lord's doing."(10) Now
it would be idle, if we believed that God had predicted
the humiliation, or even the glory, of any Christ at
all, that He could have signed His prophecy for any
but Him whom He had foretold under the figure of a
stone, and a rock, and a mountain.(11) If, however,
He speaks of His own coming, why does He compare it
with the days of Noe and of Lot, which were dark and
terrible--a mild and gentle God as He is? Why does
He bid us "remember Lot's wife,"(13) who
despised the Creator's command, and was punished for
her contempt, if He does not come with judgment to
avenge the infraction of His precepts? If He really
does punish, like the Creator,(14) if He is my Judge,
He ought not to have adduced examples for the purpose
of instructing me from Him whom He yet destroys, that
He(15) might not seem to be my instructor. But if He
does not even here speak of His own coming, but of
the coming of the Hebrew Christ,(16) let us still wait
in expectation that He will vouchsafe to us some prophecy
of His own advent; meanwhile we will continue to believe
that He is none other than He whom He reminds us of
in every passage.

CHAP. XXXVI.--THE PARABLES OF THE IMPORTUNATE WIDOW,
AND OF THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. CHRIST'S ANSWER
TO THE RICH RULER, THE CURE OF THE BLIND MAN. HIS SALUTATION--SON
OF DAVID. ALL PROOFS OF CHRIST'S RELATION TO THE CREATOR,
MARCION'S ANTITHESIS BETWEEN DAVID AND CHRIST CONFUTED.

When He recommends perseverance and earnestness
in prayer, He sets before us the parable of the judge
who was compelled to listen to the widow, owing to
the earnestness and importunity of her requests.(17)
He show us that it is God the judge whom we must importune
with prayer, and not Himself, if He is not Himself
the judge. But He added, that "God would avenge
His own elect."(18) Since, then, He who judges
will also Himself be the avenger, He proved that the
Creator

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is on that account the specially good God,(1) whom He
represented as the avenger of His own elect, who cry
day and night to Him, And yet, when He introduces to
our view the Creator's temple, and describes two men
worshipping therein with diverse feelings--the Pharisee
in pride, the publican in humility--and shows us how
they accordingly went down to their homes, one rejected,(2)
the other justified,(3) He surely, by thus teaching
us the proper discipline of prayer, has determined
that that God must be prayed to from whom men were
to receive this discipline of prayer --whether condemnatory
of pride, or justifying in humility.(4) I do not find
from Christ any temple, any suppliants, any sentence
(of approval or condemnation) belonging to any other
god than the Creator. Him does He enjoin us to worship
in humility, as the lifter-up of the humble, not in
pride, because He brings down(5) the proud. What other
god has He manifested to me to receive my supplications?
With what formula of worship, with what hope (shall
I approach him?) I trow, none. For the prayer which
He has taught us suits, as we have proved,(6) none
but the Creator. It is, of course, another matter if
He does not wish to be prayed to, because He is the
supremely and spontaneously good God! But who is this
good God? There is, He says, "none but one."(7)
It is not as if He had shown us that one of two gods
was the supremely good; but He expressly asserts that
there is one only good God, who is the only good, because
He is the only God. Now, undoubtedly,(8) He is the
good God who "sendeth rain on the just and on
the unjust, and maketh His sun to rise on the evil
and on the good;"(9) sustaining and nourishing
and assisting even Marcionites themselves! When afterwards
"a certain man asked him, 'Good Master, what shall
I do to inherit eternal life?'" (Jesus) inquired
whether he knew (that is, in other words, whether he
kept) the commandments of the Creator, in order to
testify(10) that it was by the Creator's precepts that
eternal life is acquired.(11) Then, when he affirmed
that from his youth up he had kept all the principal
commandments, l (Jesus) said to him: "One thing
thou yet lackest: sell all that thou hast, and give
to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven;
and come, follow me."(12) Well now, Marcion, and
all ye who are companions in misery, and associates
in hatred(13) with that heretic, what will you dare
say to this? Did Christ rescind the forementioned commandments:
"Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal,
Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy
mother?" Or did He both keep them, and then add(14)
what was wanting to them? This very precept, however,
about giving to the poor, was very largely(15) diffused
through the pages of the law and the prophets. This
vainglorious observer of the commandments was therefore
convicted(16) of holding money in much higher estimation
(than charity). This verity of the gospel then stands
unimpaired: "I am not come to destroy the law
and the prophets, but rather to fulfil them."(17)
He also dissipated other doubts, when He declared that
the name of God and of the Good belonged to one and
the same being, at whose disposal were also the everlasting
life and the treasure in heaven and Himself too--whose
commandments He both maintained and augmented with
His own supplementary precepts. He may likewise be
discovered in the following passage of Micah, saying:
"He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and
what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly,
and to love mercy, and to be ready to follow the Lord
thy God?"(18) Now Christ is the man who tells
us what is good, even the knowledge of the law. "Thou
knowest," says He, "the commandments."
"To do justly"--"Sell all that thou
hast;" "to love mercy"--"Give to
the poor:" "and to be ready to walk with
God"--"And come," says He, "follow
me."(19) The Jewish nation was from its beginning
so carefully divided into tribes and clans, and families
and houses, that no man could very well have been ignorant
of his descent--even from the recent assessments of
Augustus, which were still probably extant at this
time.(20) But the Jesus of Marcion (although there
could be no doubt of a person's having been born, who
was seen to be a man), as being unborn, could not,
of course, have possessed any public testimonial(21)
of his descent, but was to be regarded as one of that
obscure class of whom nothing was in any way

411

known. Why then did the blind man, on hearing that He
was passing by, exclaim, "Jesus, Thou Son of David,
have mercy on me?"(1) unless he was considered,
in no uncertain manner,(2) to be the Son of David (in
other words, to belong to David's family) through his
mother and his brethren, who at some time or other
had been made known to him by public notoriety? "Those,
however, who went before rebuked the blind man, that
he should hold his peace."(3) And properly enough;
because he was very noisy, not because he was wrong
about the son of David Else you must show me, that
those who rebuked him were aware that Jesus was not
the Son of David, in order that they may be supposed
to have had this reason for imposing silence on the
blind man. But even if you could show me this, still
(the blind man) would more readily have presumed that
they were ignorant, than that the Lord could possibly
have permitted an untrue exclamation about Himself.
But the Lord "stood patient."(4) Yes; but
not as confirming the error, for, on the contrary,
He rather displayed the Creator. Surely He could not
have first removed this man's blindness, in order that
he might afterwards cease to regard Him as the Son
of David! However,(5) that you may not slander(6) His
patience, nor fasten on Him any charge of dissimulation,
nor deny Him to be the Son of David, He very pointedly
confirmed the exclamation of the blind man--both by
the actual gift of healing, and by bearing testimony
to his faith: "Thy faith," say Christ, "hath
made thee whole."(7) What would you have the blind
man's faith to have been? That Jesus was descended
from that (alien) god (of Marcion), to subvert the
Creator and overthrow the law and the prophets? That
He was not the destined offshoot from the root of Jesse,
and the fruit of David's loins, the restorer(8) also
of the blind? But I apprehend there were at that time
no such stone-blind persons as Marcion, that an opinion
like this could have constituted the faith of the blind
man, and have induced him to confide in the mere named
of Jesus, the Son of David. He, who knew all this of
Himself,(10) and wished others to know it also, endowed
the faith of this man--although it was already gifted
with a better sight, and although it was in possession
of the true light--with the external vision likewise,
in order that we too might learn the rule of faith,
and at the same time find its recompense. Whosoever
wishes to see Jesus the Son of David must believe in
Him; through the Virgin's birth.(11) He who will not
believe this will not hear from Him the salutation,
"Thy faith hath saved thee." And so he will
remain blind, falling into Antithesis after Antithesis,
which mutually destroy each other,(12) just as "the
blind man leads the blind down into the ditch."(13)
For (here is one of Marcion's Antitheses): whereas
David in old time, in the capture of Sion, was offended
by the blind who opposed his admission (into the stronghold)(14)--in
which respect (I should rather say) that they were
a type of people equally blind,(15) who in after-times
would not admit Christ to be the son of David--so,
on the contrary, Christ succoured the blind man, to
show by this act that He was not David's son, and how
different in disposition He was, kind to the blind,
while David ordered them to be slain.(16) If all this
were so, why did Marcion allege that the blind man's
faith was of so worthless(17) a stamp? The fact is,(18)
the Son of David so acted,(19) that the Antithesis
must lose its point by its own absurdity.(20) Those
persons who offended David were blind, and the man
who now presents himself as a suppliant to David's
son is afflicted with the same infirmity.(21) Therefore
the Son of David was appeased with some sort of satisfaction
by the blind man when He restored him to sight, and
added His approval of the faith which had led him to
believe the very truth, that he must win to his help(22)
the Son of David by earnest entreaty. But, after all,
I suspect that it was the audacity (of the old Jebusites)
which offended David, and not their malady.

CHAP. XXXVII.--CHRIST AND ZACCHAEUS. THE SALVATION OF
THE BODY AS DENIED BY MARCION. THE PARABLE OF THE TEN
SERVANTS ENTRUSTED WITH TEN POUNDS. CHRIST A JUDGE,
WHO IS TO ADMINISTER THE WILL OF THE AUSTERE MAN, I.E.
THE CREATOR.

"Salvation comes to the house" of Zac-

112

chaeus even.(1) For what reason? Was it because he also
believed that Christ came by Marcion? But the blind
man's cry was still sounding in the ears of all: "Jesus,
Thou Son of David, have mercy on me." And "all
the people gave praise unto God"--not Marcion's,
but David's. Now, although Zacchaeus was probably a
Gentile,(2) he yet from his intercourse with Jews had
obtained a smattering(3) of their Scriptures, and,
more than this, had, without knowing it, fulfilled
the precepts of Isaiah: "Deal thy bread,"
said the prophet, "to the hungry, and bring the
poor that are cast out into thine house."(4) This
he did in the best possible way, by receiving the Lord,
and entertaining Him in his house. "When thou
seest the naked cover him."(5) This he promised
to do, in an equally satisfactory way, when he offered
the half of his goods for all works of mercy.(6) So
also "he loosened the bands of wickedness. undid
the heavy burdens, let the oppressed go free, and broke
every yoke,"(7) when he said, "If I have
taken anything from any man by false accusation, I
restore him fourfold."(8) Therefore the Lord said,
"This day is salvation come to this house."(9)
Thus did He give His testimony, that the precepts of
the Creator spoken by the prophet tended to salvation.(10)
But when He adds, "For the Son of man is come
to seek and to save that which was lost,"(11)
my present contention is not whether He was come to
save what was lost, to whom it had once belonged, and
from whom what He came to save had fallen away; but
I approach a different question. Man, there can be
no doubt of it, is here the subject of consideration.
Now, since he consists of two pans,(12) body and soul,
the point to be inquired into is, in which of these
two man would seem to have been lost? If in his body,
then it is his body, not his soul, which is lost. What,
however, is lost, the Son of man saves. The body,(13)
therefore, has the salvation. If, (on the other hand,)
it is in his soul that man is lost, salvation is designed
for the lost soul; and the body which is not lost is
safe. If, (to take the only other supposition,) man
is wholly lost, in both his natures, then it necessarily
follows that salvation is appointed for the entire
man; and then the opinion of the heretics is shivered
to pieces,(14) who say that there is no salvation of
the flesh. And this affords a confirmation that Christ
belongs to the Creator, who followed the Creator in
promising the salvation of the whole man. The parable
also of the (ten) servants, who received their several
recompenses according to the manner in which they had
increased their lord's money by trading? proves Him
to be a God of judgment--even a God who, in strict
account,(16) not only bestows honour, but also takes
away what a man seems to have.(17) Else, if it is the
Creator whom He has here delineated as the "austere
man," who "takes up what he laid not down,
and reaps what he did not sow,"(18) my instructor
even here is He, (whoever He may be,) to whom belongs
the money He teaches me fruitfully to expend.(19)

CHAP. XXXVIII.--CHRIST'S REFUTATIONS OF THE PHARISEES.
RENDERING DUES TO CAESAR AND TO GOD. NEXT OF THE SADDUCEES,
RESPECTING MARRIAGE IN THE RESURRECTION. THESE PROVE
HIM NOT TO BE MARCION'S BUT THE CREATOR'S CHRIST. MARCION'S
TAMPERINGS IN ORDER TO MAKE ROOM FOR HIS SECOND GOD,
EXPOSED AND CONFUTED.

Christ knew "the baptism of John, whence it
was."(20) Then why did He ask them, as if He knew
not? He knew that the Pharisees would not give Him
an answer; then why did He ask in vain? Was it that
He might judge them out of their own mouth, or their
own heart? Suppose you refer these points to an excuse
of the Creator, or to His comparison with Christ; then
consider what would have happened if the Pharisees
had replied to His question. Suppose their answer to
have been, that John's baptism was "of men,"
they would have been immediately stoned to death.(21)
Some Marcion, in rivalry to Marcion, would have stood
up(22) and said: O most excellent God; how different
are his ways from the Creator's! Knowing that men would
rush down headlong over it, He placed them

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actually(1) on the very precipice. For thus do men treat
of the Creator respecting His law of the tree.(2) But
John's baptism was "from heaven." "Why,
therefore," asks Christ, "did ye not believe
him?"(3) He therefore who had wished men to believe
John, purposing to censure(4) them because they had
not believed him, belonged to Him whose sacrament John
was administering. But, at any rate,(5) when He actually
met their refusal to say what they thought, with such
reprisals as, "Neither tell I you by what authority
I do these things,"(6) He returned evil for evil!
''Render unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's,
and unto God the things which be God's."(7) What
will be "the things which are God's?" Such
things as are like Caesar's denarius--that is to say,
His image and similitude. That, therefore, which he
commands to be "rendered unto God," the Creator,
is man, who has been stamped with His image, likeness,
name, and substance.(8) Let Marcion's god look after
his own mint.(9) Christ bids the denarius of man's
imprint to be rendered to His Caesar, (His Caesar I
say,) not the Caesar of a strange god.(10) The truth,
however, must be confessed, this god has not a denarius
to call his own! In every question the just and proper
rule is, that the meaning of the answer ought to be
adapted to the proposed inquiry. But it is nothing
short of madness to return an answer altogether different
from the question submitted to you. God forbid, then,
that we should expect from Christ(11) conduct which
would be unfit even to an ordinary man! The Sadducees,
who said there was no resurrection, in a discussion
on that subject, had proposed to the Lord a case of
law touching a certain woman, who, in accordance with
the legal prescription, had been married to seven brothers
who had died one after the other. The question therefore
was, to which husband must she be reckoned to belong
in the resurrection?(12) This, (observe,) was the gist
of the inquiry, this was the sum and substance of the
dispute. And to it Christ was obliged to return a direct
answer. He had nobody to fear; that it should seem
advisable(13) for Him either to evade their questions,
or to make them the occasion of indirectly mooring(14)
a subject which He was not in the habit of teaching
publicly at any other time. He therefore gave His answer,
that "the children of this world marry."(15)
You see how pertinent it was to the case in point.
Because the question concerned the next world, and
He was going to declare that no one marries there,
He opens the way by laying down the principles that
here, where there is death, there is also marriage.
"But they whom God shall account worthy of the
possession of that world and the resurrection from
the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage;
forasmuch as they cannot die any more, since they become
equal to the angels, being made the children of God
and of the resurrection."(16) If, then, the meaning
of the answer must not turn on any other point than
on the proposed question, and since the question proposed
is fully understood from this sense of the answer,(17)
then the Lord's reply admits of no other interpretation
than that by which the question is clearly understood.(18)
You have both the time in which marriage is permitted,
and the time in which it is said to be unsuitable,
laid before you, not on their own account, but in consequence
of an inquiry about the resurrection. You have likewise
a confirmation of the resurrection itself, and the
whole question which the Sadducees mooted, who asked
no question about another god, nor inquired about the
proper law of marriage. Now, if you make Christ answer
questions which were not submitted to Him, you, in
fact, represent Him as having been unable to solve
the points on which He was really consulted, and entrapped
of course by the cunning of the Sadducees. I shall
now proceed, by way of supererogation,(19) and after
the rule (I have laid down about questions and answers),(20)
to deal with the arguments which have any consistency
in them.(21) They procured then a copy of the Scripture,
and made short work with its text, by reading it thus:(22)
"Those whom the god of that world shall account
worthy." They

414

add the phrase "of that world" to the word
"god," whereby they make another god"the
god of that world;" whereas the passage ought
to be read thus: "Those whom God shall account
worthy of the possession of that world" (removing
the distinguishing phrase "of this world"
to the end of the clause,(1) in other words, "Those
whom God shall account worthy of obtaining and rising
to that world." For the question submitted to
Christ had nothing to do with the god, but only with
the state, of that world. It was: "Whose wife
should this woman be in that world after the resurrection?"(2)
They thus subvert His answer respecting the essential
question of marriage, and apply His words, "The
children of this world marry and are given in marriage,"
as if they referred to the Creator's men, and His permission
to them to marry; whilst they themselves whom the god
of that world--that is, the rival god--accounted worthy
of the resurrection, do not marry even here, because
they are not children of this world. But the fact is,
that, having been consulted about marriage in that
world, not in this present one, He had simply declared
the non-existence of that to which the question related.
They, indeed, who had caught the very force of His
voice, and pronunciation, and expression, discovered
no other sense than what had reference to the matter
of the question. Accordingly, the Scribes exclaimed,
"Master, Thou hast well said."(3) For He
had affirmed the resurrection, by describing the form(4)
thereof in opposition to the opinion of the Sadducees.
Now, He did not reject the attestation of those who
had assumed His answer to bear this meaning. If, however,
the Scribes thought Christ was David's Son, whereas
(David) himself calls Him Lord,(5) what relation has
this to Christ? David did not literally confute(6)
an error of the Scribes, yet David asserted the honour
of Christ, when he more prominently affirmed that He
was his Lord than his Son,--an attribute which was
hardly suitable to the destroyer of the Creator. But
how consistent is the interpretation on our side of
the question! For He, who had been a little while ago
invoked by the blind man as "the Son of David,"(7)
then made no remark on the subject, not having the
Scribes in His presence; whereas He now purposely moots
the point before them, and that of His own accord,(8)
in order that He might show Himself whom the Mind man,
following the doctrine of the Scribes, had simply declared
to be the Son of David, to be also his Lord. He thus
honoured the blind man's faith which had acknowledged
His Sonship to David; but at the same time He struck
a blow at the tradition of the Scribes, which prevented
them from knowing that He was also (David's) Lord.
Whatever had relation to the glory of the Creator's
Christ, no other would thus guard and maintain(9) but
Himself the Creator's Christ.

CHAP. XXXIX.--CONCERNING THOSE WHO COME IN THE NAME
OF CHRIST. THE TERRIBLE SIGNS OF HIS COMING. HE WhOSE
COMING IS
SO GRANDLY DESCRIBED BOTH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE
NEW TESTAMENT, IS NONE OTHER THAN THE CHRIST OF THE
CREATOR. THIS PROOF ENHANCED BY THE PARABLE OF THE
FIG-TREE AND ALL THE TREES. PARALLEL PASSAGES OF PROPHECY.

As touching the propriety of His names, it has already
been seen(10) that both of them"(11) are suitable
to Him who was the first both to announce His Christ
to mankind, and to give Him the further name (12) of
Jesus. The impudence, therefore, of Marcion's Christ
will be evident, when he says that many will come in
his name, whereas this name does not at all belong
to him, since he is not the Christ and Jesus of the
Creator, to whom these names do properly appertain;
and more especially when he prohibits those to be received
whose very equal in imposture he is, inasmuch as he
(equally with them(13) ) comes in a name which belongs
to another--unless it was his business to warn off
from a mendaciously assumed name the disciples (of
One) who, by reason of His name being properly given
to Him, possessed also the verity thereof. But when
"they shall by and by come and say, I am Christ,"(14)
they will be received by you, who have already received
one altogether like them.(15) Christ, however, comes
in His own

415

name. What will you do, then, when He Himself comes
who is the very Proprietor of these names, the Creator's
Christ and Jesus? Will you reject Him? But how iniquitous,
how unjust and disrespectful to the good God, that
you should not receive Him who comes in His own name,
when you have received another in His name! Now, let
us see what are the signs which He ascribes to the
times. "Wars," I observe, "and kingdom
against kingdom, and nation against nation, and pestilence,
and famines, and earthquakes, and fearful sights, and
great signs from heaven"(1)--all which things
are suitable for a severe and terrible God. Now, when
He goes on to say that "all these things must
needs come to pass,"(2) what does He represent
Himself to be? The Destroyer, or the Defender of the
Creator? For He affirms thai these appointments of
His must fully come to pass; but surely as the good
God, He would have frustrated rather than advanced
events so sad and terrible, if they had not been His
own (decrees). "But before all these," He
foretells that persecutions and sufferings were to
come upon them, which indeed were "to turn for
a testimony to them," and for their salvation.(3)
Hear what is predicted in Zechariah: "The Lord
of hosts(4) shall protect them; and they shall devour
them, and subdue them with sling-stones; and they shall
drink their blood like wine, and they shall fill the
bowls as it were of the altar. And the Lord shall save
them in that day, even His people, like sheep; because
as sacred stones they roll,"(5) etc. And that
you may not suppose that these predictions refer to
such sufferings as await them from so many wars with
strangers,(6) consider the nature (of the sufferings).
In a prophecy of wars which were to be waged with legitimate
arms, no one would think of enumerating stones as weapons,
which are better known in popular crowds and unarmed
tumults. Nobody measures the copious streams of blood
which flow in war by bowlfuls, nor limits it to what
is shed upon a single altar. No one gives the name
of sheep to those who fall in battle with arms in hand,
and while repelling force with force, but only to those
who are slain, yielding themselves up in their own
place of duty and with patience, rather than fighting
in self-defence. In short, as he says, "they roll
as sacred stones," and not like soldiers fight.
Stones are they, even foundation stones, upon which
we are ourselves edified--"built," as St.Paul
says, "upon the foundation of the apostles,"(7)
who, like "consecrated stones," were rolled
up and down exposed to the attack of all men. And therefore
in this passage He forbids men "to meditate before
what they answer" when brought before tribunals,(8)
even as once He suggested to Balaam the message which
he had not thought of,(9) nay, contrary to what he
had thought; and promised "a mouth" to Moses,
when he pleaded in excuse the slowness of his speech,(10)
and that wisdom which, by Isaiah, He showed to be irresistible:
"One shall say, I am the Lord's, and shall call
himself by the name of Jacob, and another shall subscribe
himself by the name of lsrael."(11) Now, what
plea is wiser and more irresistible than the simple
and open"(12) confession made in a martyr's cause,
who "prevails with God"--which is what "Israel"
means?(13) Now, one cannot wonder that He forbade "premeditation,"
who actually Himself received from the Father the ability
of uttering words in season: "The Lord hath given
to me the tongue of the learned, that I should know
how to speak a word in season (to him that is weary);"(14)
except that Marcion introduces to us a Christ who is
not subject to the Father. That persecutions from one's
nearest friends are predicted, and calumny out of hatred
to His name,(15) I need not again refer to. But "by
patience,"(16) says He, "ye shall yourselves
be saved."(17) Of this very patience the Psalm
says, "The patient endurance of the just shall
not perish for ever;"(18) because it is said in
another Psalm, "Precious (in the sight of the
Lord) is the death of the just"--arising, no doubt,
out of their patient endurance, so that Zechariah declares:
"A crown shall be to them that endure."(19)
But that you may not boldly contend that it was as
announcers of another god that the apostles were persecuted
by the Jews, remember that even the prophets suffered
the same treatment of the Jews, and that they were
not the heralds of any other god than the Creator.
Then, having shown what was to be the period of the
destruction, even "when Jerusalem should

416

begin to be compassed with armies,"(1) He described
the signs of the end of all things: "portents
in the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and upon the
earth distress of nations in perplexity--like the sea
roaring--by reason of their expectation of the evils
which are coming on the earth."(2) That "the
very powers also of heaven have to be shaken,"(3)
you may find in Joel: "And I will show wonders
in the heavens and in the earth--blood and fire, and
pillars of smoke; the sun shall be turned into darkness,
and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible
day of the Lord come."(4) In Habakkuk also you
have this statement: "With rivers shall the earth
be cleaved; the nations shall see thee, and be m pangs.
Thou shalt disperse the waters with thy step; the deep
uttered its voice; the height of its fear was raised;(5)
the sun and the moon stood still in their course; into
light shall thy coruscations go; and thy shield shall
be (like) the glittering of the lightning's flash;
in thine anger thou shalt grind the earth, and shalt
thresh the nations in thy wrath."(6) There is
thus an agreement, I apprehend, between the sayings
of the Lord and of the prophets touching the shaking
of the earth, and the elements, and the nations thereof.
But what does the Lord say afterwards? "And then
shall they see the Son of man coming from the heavens
with very great power. And when these things shall
come to pass, ye shall look up, and raise your heads;
for your redemption hath come near," that is,
at the time of the kingdom, of which the parable itself
treats.(7) "So likewise ye, when ye shall see
these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom
of God is nigh at hand."(8) This will be the great
day of the Lord, and of the glorious coming of the
Son of man from heaven, of which Daniel wrote: "Behold,
one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven,"(9)
etc. "And there was given unto Him the kingly
power," (10) which (in the parable) "He went
away into a far country to receive for Himself,"
leaving money to His servants wherewithal to trade
and get increase(11)--even (that universal kingdom
of) all nations, which in the Psalm the Father had
promised to give to Him: Ask of me, and I will give
Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance."(12) "And
all that glory shall serve Him; His dominion shall
be an everlasting one, which shall not be taker from
Him, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed,"(13)
because in it "men shall not die, neither shall
they marry, but be like the angels."(14) It is
about the same advent of the Son of man and the benefits
thereof that we read in Habakkuk: "Thou wentest
forth for the salvation of Thy people, even to save
Thine anointed ones,(15)--in other words, those who
shall look up and lift their heads, being redeemed
in the time of His kingdom. Since, therefore, these
descriptions of the promises, on the one hand, agree
together, as do also those of the great catastrophes,
on the other--both in the predictions of the prophets
and the declarations of the Lord, it will be impossible
for you to interpose any distinction between them,
as if the catastrophes could be referred to the Creator,
as the terrible God, being such as the good god (of
Marcion) ought not to permit, much less expect --whilst
the promises should be ascribed to the good god, being
such as the Creator, in His ignorance of the said god,
could not have predicted. If, however, He did predict
these promises as His own, since they differ in no
respect from the promises of Christ, He will be a match
in the freeness of His gifts with the good god himself;
and evidently no more will have been promised by your
Christ than by my Son of man. (If you examine) the
whole passage of this Gospel Scripture, from the inquiry
of the disciples(16) down to the parable of the fig-tree(17)
you will find the sense in its connection suit in every
point the Son of man, so that it consistently ascribes
to Him both the sorrows and the joys, and the catastrophes
and the promises; nor can you separate them from Him
in either respect. For asmuch, then, as there is but
one Son of man whose advent is placed between the two
issues of catastrophe and promise, it must needs follow
that to that one Son of man belong both the judgments
upon the nations, and the prayers of the saints. He
who thus comes in midway so as to be common to both
issues, will terminate one of them by inflicting judgment
on the nations at His coming; and will at the same
time commence the other by fulfilling the prayers of
His saints: so that if (on the one hand) you grant
that the coming of the Son of man is (the advent) of
my Christ, then, when you ascribe to Him the infliction
of the judgments which precede His appearance, you
are compelled also to assign to

417

Him the blessings which issue from the same. If (on
the other hand) you will have it that it is the coming
of your Christ, then, when you ascribe to him the blessings
which are to be the result of his advent, you are obliged
to impute to him likewise the infliction of the evils
which precede his appearance. For the evils which precede,
and the blessings which immediately follow, the coming
of the Son of man, are both alike indissolubly connected
with that event. Consider, therefore, which of the
two Christs you choose to place in the person of the
Son of man, to whom you may refer the execution of
the two dispensations. You make either the Creator
a most beneficent God, or else your own god terrible
in his nature! Reflect, in short, on the picture presented
in the parable: "Behold the fig-tree, and all
the trees; when they produce their fruit, men know
that summer is at hand. So likewise ye, when ye see
these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom
of God is very near."(1) Now, if the fructification
of the common trees(2) be an antecedent sign of the
approach of summer, so in like manner do the great
conflicts of the world indicate the arrival of that
kingdom which they precede. But every sign is His,
to whom belong the thing of which it is the sign; and
to everything is appointed its sign by Him to whom
the thing belongs. If, therefore, these tribulations
are the signs of the kingdom, just as the maturity
of the trees is of the summer, it follows that the
kingdom is the Creator's to whom are ascribed the tribulations
which are the signs of the kingdom. Since the beneficent
Deity had premised that these things must needs come
to pass, although so terrible and dreadful, as they
had been predicted by the law and the prophets, therefore
He did not destroy the law and the prophets, when He
affirmed that what had been foretold therein must be
certainly fulfilled. He further declares, "that
heaven and earth shall not pass away till all things
be fulfilled."(3) What things, pray, are these?
Are they the things which the Creator made? Then the
elements will tractably endure the accomplishment of
their Maker's dispensation. If, however, they emanate
from your excellent god, I much doubt whether(4) the
heaven and earth will peaceabIy allow the completion
of things which their Creator's enemy has determined!
If the Creator quietly submits to this, then He is
no "jealous God." But let heaven and earth
pass away, since their Lord has so determined; only
let His word remain for evermore! And so Isaiah predicted
that it should.(5) Let the disciples also be warned,
"lest their hearts be overcharged with surfeiting
and drunkenness, and cares of this world; and so that
day come upon them unawares, like a snare "(6)--if
indeed they should forget God amidst the abundance
and occupation of the world. Like this will be found
the admonition of Moses,--so that He who delivers from
"the snare" of that day is none other than
He who so long before addressed to men the same admonition?
Some places there were in Jerusalem where to teach;
other places outside Jerusalem whither to retire(8)--"in
the day-time He was teaching in the temple;" just
as He had foretold by Hosea: "In my house did
they find me, and there did I speak with them."(9)
"But at night He went out to the Mount of Olives."
For thus had Zechariah pointed out: "And His feet
shall stand in that day on the Mount of Olives."(10)
Fit hours for an audience there also were. "Early
in the morning"(11) must they resort to Him, who
(having said by Isaiah, "The Lord giveth me the
tongue of the learned") added, "He hath appointed
me the morning, and hath also given me an ear to hear."(12)
Now if this is to destroy the prophets,(13) what will
it be to fulfil them?

CHAP. XL.--HOW THE STEPS IN THE PASSION OF THE SAVIOUR
WERE PREDETERMINED IN PROPHECY. THE PASSOVER. THE TREACHERY
OF JUDAS. THE INSTITUTION OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. THE
DOCETIC ERROR OF MARCION CONFUTED BY THE BODY AND THE
BLOOD OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.

In like manner does He also know the very time it
behoved Him to suffer, since the law prefigures His
passion. Accordingly, of all the festal days of the
Jews He chose the passover.(14) In this Moses had declared
that there was a sacred mystery:(15) "It is the
Lord's passover."(16) How earnestly, therefore,
does He manifest the bent of His soul: "With desire
I have desired to eat this passover with you before
I suffer."(17) What a destroyer of the law was
this, who actually longed to keep

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its passover! Could it be that He was so fond of Jewish
lamb?(1) But was it not because He had to be "led
like a lamb to the slaughter; and because, as a sheep
before her shearers is dumb, so was He not to open
His mouth,"(2) that He so profoundly wished to
accomplish the symbol of His own redeeming blood? He
might also have been betrayed by any stranger, did
I not find that even here too He fulfilled a Psalm:
"He who did eat bread with me hath lifted up(3)
his heel against me."(4) And without a price might
He have been betrayed. For what need of a traitor was
there in the case of one who offered Himself to the
people openly, and might quite as easily have been
captured by force as taken by treachery? This might
no doubt have been well enough for another Christ,
but would not have been suitable in One who was accomplishing
prophecies. For it was written, "The righteous
one did they sell for silver."(5) The very amount
and the destination(6) of the money, which on Judas'
remorse was recalled from its first purpose of a fee,(7)
and appropriated to the purchase of a potter's field,
as narrated in the Gospel of Matthew, were clearly
foretold by Jeremiah:(8) "And they took the thirty
pieces of silver, the price of Him who was valued?
and gave them for the potter's field." When He
so earnestly expressed His desire to eat the passover,
He considered it His own feast; for it would have been
unworthy of God to desire to partake of what was not
His own. Then, having taken the bread and given it
to His disciples, He made it His own body, by saying,
"This is my body,"(10) that is, the figure
of my body. A figure, however, there could not have
been, unless there were first a veritable body.(11)
An empty thing, or phantom, is incapable of a figure.
If, however, (as Marcion might say,) He pretended the
bread was His body, because He lacked the truth of
bodily substance, it follows that He must have given
bread for us. It would contribute very well to the
support of Marcion's theory of a phantom body,(12)
that bread should have been crucified! But why call
His body bread, and not rather (some other edible thing,
say) a melon,(13) which Marcion must have had in lieu
of a heart! He did not understand how ancient was this
figure of the body of Christ, who said Himself by Jeremiah:
"I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to
the slaughter, and I knew not that(14) they devised
a device against me, saying, Let us cast the tree upon
His bread,"(15) which means, of course, the cross
upon His body. And thus, casting light, as He always
did, upon the ancient prophecies,(16) He declared plainly
enough what He meant by the bread, when He called the
bread His own body. He likewise, when mentioning the
cup and making the new testament to be sealed "in
His blood,"(17) affirms the reality of His body.
For no blood can belong to a body which is not a body
of flesh. If any sort of body were presented to our
view, which is not one of flesh, not being fleshly,
it would not possess blood. Thus, from the evidence
of the flesh, we get a proof of the body, and a proof
of the flesh from the evidence of the blood. In order,
however, that you may discover how anciently wine is
used as a figure for blood, turn to Isaiah, who asks,
"Who is this that cometh from Edom, from Bosor
with garments dyed in red, so glorious in His apparel,
in the greatness of his might? Why are thy garments
red, and thy raiment as his who cometh from the treading
of the full winepress?"(18) The prophetic Spirit
contemplates the Lord as if He were already on His
way to His passion, clad in His fleshly nature; and
as He was to suffer therein, He represents the bleeding
condition of His flesh under the metaphor of garments
dyed in red, as if reddened in the treading and crushing
process of the wine-press, from which the labourers
descend reddened with the wine-juice, like men stained
in blood. Much more clearly still does the book of
Genesis foretell this, when

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(in the blessing of Judah, out of whose tribe Christ
was to come according to the flesh) it even then delineated
Christ in the person of that patriarch,(1) saying,
"He washed His garments in wine, and His clothes
in the blood of grapes"(2)--in His garments and
clothes the prophecy pointed out his flesh, and His
blood in the wine. Thus did He now consecrate His blood
in wine, who then (by the patriarch) used the figure
of wine to describe His blood.

CHAP. XLI.--THE WOE PRONOUNCED ON THE TRAITOR A JUDICIAL
ACT, WHICH DISPROVES CHRIST TO BE SUCH AS MARCION WOULD
HAVE HIM TO BE. CHRIST'S CONDUCT BEFORE THE COUNCIL
EXPLAINED.CHRIST EVEN THEN DIRECTS THE MINDS OF HIS
JUDGES TO THE PROPHETIC EVIDENCES OF HIS OWN MISSION.
THE MORAL RESPONSIBILITY OF THESE MEN ASSERTED.

"Woe," says He, "to that man by whom
the Son of man is betrayed!"(3) Now it is certain
that in this woe must be understood the imprecation
and threat of an angry and incensed Master, unless
Judas was to escape with impunity after so vast a sin.
If he were meant to escape with impunity, the was an
idle word; if not, he was of course to be punished
by Him against whom he had committed the sin of treachery.
Now, if He knowingly permitted the man, whom He(4)
deliberately elected to be one of His companions, to
plunge into so great a crime, you must no longer use
an argument against the Creator in Adam's case, which
may now recoil on your own God:(5) either that he was
ignorant, and had no foresight to hinder the future
sinner;(6) or that he was unable to hinder him, even
if he was ignorant;(7) or else that he was unwilling,
even if he had the foreknowledge and the ability; and
so deserved the stigma of maliciousness, in having
permitted the man of his own choice to perish in his
sin. I advise you therefore (willingly) to acknowledge
the Creator in that god of yours, rather than against
your will to be assimilating your excellent god to
Him. For in the case of Peter,(8) too, he gives you
proof that he is a jealous God, when he destined the
apostle, after his presumptuous protestations of zeal,
to a flat denial of him, rather than prevent his fall.(9)
The Christ of the prophets was destined, moreover,
to be betrayed with a kiss,(10) for He was the Son
indeed of Him who was "honoured with the lips"
by the people.(11) When led before the council, He
is asked whether He is the Christ.(12) Of what Christ
could the Jews have inquired(13) but their own? Why,
therefore, did He not, even at that moment, declare
to them the rival (Christ)? You reply, In order that
He might be able to suffer. In other words, that this
most excellent god might plunge men into crime, whom
he was still keeping in ignorance. But even if he had
told them, he would yet have to suffer. For he said,
"If I tell you, ye will not believe."(14)
And refusing to believe, they would have continued
to insist on his death. And would he not even more
probably still have had to suffer, if had announced
himself as sent by the rival god, and as being, therefore,
the enemy of the Creator? It was not, then, in order
that He might suffer, that He at that critical moment
refrained from proclaiming(15) Himself the other Christ,
but because they wanted to extort a confession from
His mouth, which they did not mean to believe even
if He had given it to them, whereas it was their bounden
duty to have acknowledged Him in consequence of His
works, which were fulfilling their Scriptures. It was
thus plainly His course to keep Himself at that moment
unrevealed,(16) because a spontaneous recognition was
due to Him. But yet for all this, He with a solemn
gesture(17) says, "Hereafter shall the Son of
man sit on the right hand of the power of God."(18)
For it was on the authority of the prophecy of Daniel
that He intimated to them that He was "the Son
of man,"(19) and of David's Psalm, that He would
"sit at the right hand of God."(20) Accordingly,
after He had said this, and so suggested a comparison
of the Scripture, a ray of light did seem to show them
whom He would have them understand Him to be; for they
say: "Art thou then the Son of God?"(21)
Of what God, but of Him whom alone they knew? Of what
God but of Him whom they remembered in the Psalm as
having said to

420

His Son, "Sit Thou on my right hand?" Then
He answered, "Ye say that I am;"(1) as if
He meant: It is ye who say this--not I. But at the
same time He allowed Himself to be all that they had
said, in this their second question.(2) By what means,
however, are you going to prove to us that they pronounced
the sentence "Ergo tu fulius Dei es" inter-rogatively,
and not affirmatively?(3) Just as, (on the one hand,)
because He had shown them in an indirect manner,(4)
by passages of Scripture, that they ought to regard
Him as the Son of God, they therefore meant their own
words, "Thou art then the Son of God," to
be taken in a like (indirect) sense,(5) as much as
to say, "You do not wish to say this of yourself
plainly,(6) so, (on the other hand,) He likewise answered
them, "Ye say that I am," in a sense equally
free from doubt, even affirmatively;(7) and so completely
was His statement to this effect, that they insisted
on accepting that sense which His statement indicated.(8)

CHAP. XLII.--OTHER INCIDENTS OF THE PASSION MINUTELY
COMPARED WITH PROPHECY. PILATE AND HEROD. BARABBAS
PREFERRED TO JESUS. DETAILS OF THE CRUCIFIXION. THE
EARTHQUAKE AND THE MID-DAY DARKNESS. ALL WONDERFULLY
FORETOLD IN THE SCRIPTURES OF THE CREATOR. CHRIST'S
GIVING UP THE GHOST NO EVIDENCE OF MARCION'S DOCETIC
OPINIONS. IN HIS SEPULTURE THERE IS A REFUTATION THEREOF.

For when He was brought before Pilate, they proceeded
to urge Him with the serious charge(9), of declaring
Himself to be Christ the King;(10) that is, undoubtedly,
as the Son of God, who was to sit at God's right hand.
They would, however, have burdened Him(11) with some
other title, if they had been uncertain whether He
had called Himself the Son of God--if He had not pronounced
the words, "Ye say that I am," so as (to
admit) that He was that which they said He was. Likewise,
when Pirate asked Him, "Art thou Christ (the King)?"
He answered, as He had before (to the Jewish council)(12)
"Thou sayest that I am"(13) in order that
He might not seem to have been driven by a fear of
his power to give him a fuller answer. "And so
the Lord i hath stood on His trial."(14) And he
placed His people on their trial. The Lord Himself
comes to a trial with "the elders and rulers of
the people," as Isaiah predicted.(15) And then
He fulfilled all that had been written of His passion.
At that time "the heathen raged, and the people
imagined vain things; the kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers gathered themselves together against
the Lord and against His Christ."(16) The heathen
were Pilate and the Romans; the people were the tribes
of Israel; the kings were represented in Herod, and
the rulers in the chief priests. When, indeed, He was
sent to Herod gratuitously(17) by Pilate,(18) the words
of Hosea were accomplished, for he had prophesied of
Christ: "And they shall carry Him bound as a present
to the king."(19) Herod was "exceeding glad"
when he saw Jesus, but he heard not a word from Him.(20)
For, "as a lamb before the shearer is dumb, so
He opened not His mouth,"(21) because "the
Lord had given to Him a disciplined tongue, that he
might know how and when it behoved Him to speak"(22)--even
that "tongue which clove to His jaws," as
the Psalm(23) said it should, through His not speaking.
Then Barabbas, the most abandoned criminal, is released,
as if he were the innocent man; while the most righteous
Christ is delivered to be put to death, as if he were
the murderer.(24) Moreover two malefactors are crucified
around Him, in order that He might Le reckoned amongst
the transgressors.(25) Although His raiment was, without
doubt, parted among the soldiers, and partly distributed
by lot, yet Marcion has erased it all (from his Gospel),(26)
for he had his eye upon the Psalm: "They parted
my garments amongst them, and cast lots upon my vesture."(27)
You may as well take away the cross itself! But even
then the Psalm is not silent concerning it: "They
pierced my hands and my feet."(28) Indeed, the
details of the whole event are therein read: "Dogs
compassed me about;

421

the assembly of the wicked enclosed me around. All that
looked upon me laughed me to scorn; they did shoot
out their lips and shake their heads, (saying,) He
hoped in God, let Him deliver Him."(1) Of what
use now is (your tampering with) the testimony of His
garments? If you take it as a booty for your false
Christ, still all the Psalm (compensates) the vesture
of Christ.(2) But, behold, the very elements are shaken.
For their Lord was suffering. If, however, it was their
enemy to whom all this injury was done, the heaven
would have gleamed with light, the sun would have been
even more radiant, and the day would have prolonged
its course(3)--gladly gazing at Marcion's Christ suspended
on his gibbet! These proofs(4) would still have been
suitable for me, even if they had not been the subject
of prophecy. Isaiah says: "I will clothe the heavens
with blackness."(5) This will be the day, concerning
which Amos also writes: And it shall come to pass in
that day, saith the Lord, that the sun shall go down
at noon and the earth shall be dark in the clear day."(6)
(At noon)(7) the veil of. the temple was rent"(8)
by the escape of the cherubim,(9) which "left
the daughter of Sion as a cottage in a vineyard, as
a lodge in a garden of cucumbers."(10) With what
constancy has He also, in Psalm xxx., laboured to present
to us the very Christ! He calls with a loud voice to
the Father, "Into Thine hands I commend my spirit,"(11)
that even when dying He might expend His last breath
in fulfilling the prophets. Having said this, He gave
up the ghost."(12) Who? Did the spirit(13) give
itself up; or the flesh the spirit? But the spirit
could not have breathed itself out. That which breathes
is one thing, that which is breathed is another. If
the spirit is breathed it must needs be breathed by
another. If, however, there had been nothing there
but spirit, it would be said to have departed rather
than expired.(14) What, however, breathes out spirit
but the flesh, which both breathes the spirit whilst
it has it, and breathes it out when it loses it? Indeed,
if it was not flesh (upon the cross), but a phantom(15)
of flesh (and(16) a phantom is but spirit, and(16)
so the spirit breathed its own self out, and departed
as it did so), no doubt the phantom departed, when
the spirit which was the phantom departed: and so the
phantom and the spirit disappeared together, and were
nowhere to be seen.(17) Nothing therefore remained
upon the cross, nothing hung there, after "the
giving up of the ghost;"(18) there was nothing
to beg of Pilate, nothing to take down from the cross,
nothing to wrap in the linen, nothing to lay in the
new sepulchre.(19) Still it was not nothing(20) that
was there. What was there, then? If a phantom Christ
was yet there. If Christ had departed, He had taken
away the phantom also. The only shift left to the impudence
of the heretics, is to admit that what remained there
was the phantom of a phantom! But what if Joseph knew
that it was a body which he treated with so much piety?(21)
That same Joseph "who had not consented"
with the Jews in their crime?(22) The "happy man
who walked not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood
in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of the scornful."(23)

CHAP. XLIII.--CONCLUSIONS.JESUS AS THE CHRIST OF THE
CREATOR PROVED FROM THE EVENTS OF THE LAST CHAPTER
OF ST. LUKE. THE PIOUS WOMEN AT THE SEPULCHRE. THE
ANGELS AT THE RESURRECTION. THE MANIFOLD APPEARANCES
OF CHRIST AFTER THE RESURRECTION. HIS MISSION OF THE
APOSTLES AMONGST ALL NATIONS. ALL SHOWN TO BE IN ACCORDANCE
WITH THE WISDOM OF THE ALMIGHTY FATHER, AS INDICATED
IN PROPHECY. THE BODY OF CHRIST AFTER DEATH NO MERE
PHANTOM. MARCION'S MANIPULATION OF THE GOSPEL ON
THIS POINT.

It was very meet that the man who buried the Lord
should thus be noticed in prophecy, and thenceforth
be "blessed;"(24) since prophecy does not
omit the (pious) office of the women who resorted before
day-break to the sepulchre with the spices which they
had pre-

422

pared.(1) For of this incident it is said by Hosea:
"To seek my face they will watch tiIl day-light,
saying unto me, Come, and let us return to the Lord:
for He hath taken away, and He will heal us; He hath
smitten, and He will bind us up; after two days will
He revive us: in the third day He will raise us up."(2)
For who can refuse to believe that these words often
revolved(3) in the thought of those women between the
sorrow of that desertion with which at present they
seemed to themselves to have been smitten by the Lord,
and the hope of the resurrection itself, by which they
rightly supposed that all would be restored to them?
But when "they found not the body (of the Lord
Jesus),"(4) "His sepulture was removed from
the midst of them,"(5) according to the prophecy
of Isaiah. "Two angels however, appeared there."(6)
For just so many honorary companions(7) were required
by the word of God, which usually prescribes "two
witnesses."(8) Moreover, the women, returning
from the sepulchre, and from this vision of the angels,
were foreseen by Isaiah, when he says, "Come,
ye women, who return from the vision;"(9) that
is, "come," to report the resurrection of
the Lord. It was well, however, that the unbelief of
the disciples was so persistent, in order that to the
last we might consistently maintain that Jesus revealed
Himself to the disciples as none other than the Christ
of the prophets. For as two of them were taking a walk,
and when the Lord had joined their company, without
its appearing that it was He, and whilst He dissembled
His knowledge of what had just taken place,(10) they
say: "But we trusted that it had been He which
should have redeemed Israel,"(11)--meaning their
own, that is, the Creator's Christ. So far had He been
from declaring Himself to them as another Christ! They
could not, however, deem Him to be the Christ of the
Creator; nor, if He was so deemed by them, could He
have tolerated this opinion concerning Himself, unless
He were really He whom He was supposed to be. Otherwise
He would actually be the author of error, and the prevaricator
of truth, contrary to the character of the good; God.
But at no time even after His resurrection did He reveal
Himself to them as any other than what, on their own
showing, they had always thought Him to be. He pointedly(12)
reproached them: "O fools, and slow of heart in
not believing that which He spake unto you."(13)
By saying this, He proves that He does not belong to
the rival god, but to the same God. For the same thing
was said by the angels to the women: "Remember
how He spake unto you when He was yet in Galilee, saying,
The Son of man must be delivered up, and be crucified,
and on the third day rise again."(14) "Must
be delivered up; "and why, except that it was
so written by God the Creator? He therefore upbraided
them, because they were offended solely at His passion,
and because they doubted of the truth of the resurrection
which had been reported to them by the women, whereby
(they showed that) they had not believed Him to have
been the very same as they had thought Him to be. Wishing,
therefore, to be believed by them in this wise, He
declared Himself to be just what they had deemed Him
to be--the Creator's Christ, the Redeemer of lsrael.
But as touching the reality of His body, what can be
plainer? When they were doubting whether He were not
a phantom--nay, were supposing that He was one--He
says to them, "Why are ye troubled, and why do
thoughts arise in your hearts? See(15) my hands and
my feet, that it is I myself; for a spirit hath not
bones, as ye see me have."(16) Now Marcion was
unwilling to expunge from his Gospel some statements
which even made against him--I suspect, on purpose,
to have it in his power from the passages which he
did not suppress, when he could have done so, either
to deny that he had expunged anything, or else to justify
his suppressions, if he made any. But he spares only
such passages as he can subvert quite as well by explaining
them away as by expunging them from the text. Thus,
in the passage before us, he would have the words,
"A spirit hath not bones, as ye see me have,"
so transposed, as to mean, "A spirit, such as
ye see me to be, hath not bones;" that is to say,
it is not the nature of a spirit to have bones. But
what need of so tortuous a construction, when He might
have simply said, "A spirit hath not bones, even
as you observe that I have not?" Why, moreover,
does He offer His hands and His feet for their examination--limbs
which consist of bones--if He had no bones? Why, too,
does He add, "Know that

423

it is I myself,"(1) when they had before known
Him to be corporeal? Else, if He were altogether a
phantom, why did He upbraid them for supposing Him
to be a phantom? But whilst they still believed not,
He asked them for some meat,(2) for the express purpose
of showing them that He had teeth.(3)
And now, as I would venture to believe,(4) we have
accomplished our undertaking. We have set forth Jesus
Christ as none other than the Christ of the Creator.
Our proofs we have drawn from His doctrines, maxims,(5)
affections, feelings, miracles, sufferings, and even
resurrection--as foretold by the prophets.(6) Even
to the last He taught us (the same truth of His mission),
when He sent forth His apostles to preach His gospel
"among all nations;"(7) for He thus fulfilled
the psalm: "Their sound is gone out through all
the earth, and their words to the end of the world."(8)
Marcion, I pity you; your labour has been in vain.
For the Jesus Christ who appears in your Gospel is
mine.

DR. HOLMES' NOTE

Dr. Holmes appends the following as a note to the Fourth
Book. (See cap. vi. p 351.) The following statement,
abridged from Dr. Lardner (The History of Heretics,
chap. x. sees. 35-40), may be useful to the reader,
in reference to the subject of the preceding Book:--Marcion
received but eleven books of the New Testament, and
these strangely curtailed and altered. He divided them
into two parts, which he called <greek>to</greek>
E<greek>uaggelion</greek> (the Gospel)
and <greek>to</greek> A<greek>postolikon</greek>
(the Apostolicon).
(1.) The former contained nothing more than a mutilated,
and sometimes interpolated, edition of ST. LUKE; the
name of that evangelist, however, he expunged from
the beginning of his copy. Chaps. i. and ii. he rejected
entirely, and began at iii. 1, reading the opening
verse thus: "In the xv. year of Tiberius Caesar,
God descended into Capernaum, a city of Galilee."
(2.) According to Irenaeus, Epiphanius, and Theodoret,
he rejected the genealogy and baptism of Christ; whilst
from Tertullian's statement (chap. vii.) it seems likely
that he connected what part of chap. iii.--vers. 1,
2--he chose to retain, with chap. iv. 31, at a leap.
(3). He further eliminated the history of the tempation.
That part of chap. iv. which narrates Christ's going
into the synagogue at Nazareth and reading out of Isaiah
he also rejected, and all afterwards to the end of
yet. 30.
(4.) Epiphanius mentions sundry slight alterations
in capp. v. 14, 24, vi. 5, 17. In chap. viii. 19 he
expunged <greek>h</greek> <greek>mhthr</greek>
<greek>autos</greek>, <greek>kai</greek>
<greek>adelfoi</greek> <greek>autou</greek>.
From Tertullian's remarks (chap. xix.), it would seem
at first as if Marcion had added to his Gospel that
answer of our Saviour which we find related by St.
Matthew, chap. xii. 48: "Who is my mother, and
who are my brethren?" For he represents Marcion
(as in De came Christ, vii., he represents other heretics,
who deny the nativity) as making use of these words
for his favourite argument. But, after all, Marcion
might use these words against those who allowed the
authenticity of Matthew's Gospel, without inserting
them in his own Gospel; or else Tertullian might quote
from memory, and think that to be in Luke which was
only in Matthew--as he has done at least in three instances.
(Lardner refers two of these instances to passages
in chap. vii. of this Book iv., where Tertullian mentions,
as erasures from Luke, what really are found in Matthew
v. 17 and xv. 24. The third instance referred to by
Lardner probably occurs at the end of chap. ix. of
this same Book iv., where Tertullian

424

again mistakes Matt. v. 17 for a passage of Luke, and
charges Marcion with expunging it; curiously enough,
the mistake recurs in chap. xii. of the same Book.)
In Luke x. 21 Marcion omitted the first <greek>pater</greek>
and the words <greek>kai</greek> <greek>ths</greek>
<greek>ghs</greek>, that he might not allow
Christ to call His Father the Lord of earth, or of
this world. The second <greek>pathr</greek>
in this verse, not open to any inconvenience, he retained.
In chap. xi. 29 he omitted the last words concerning
the sign of the prophet Jonah; he also omitted all
the 30th, 31st, and 32d verses; in ver. 42 he read
<greek>kghsin</greek>, 'calling,' instead
of <greek>emprosqen</greek> <greek>twn</greek>
<greek>aggegmn</greek> <greek>tou</greek>
<greek>Qeou</greek> 'judgment.' He rejected
verses 49, 50, 51, because the passage related to the
prophets. He entirely omitted chap. xii. 6; whilst
in ver. 8 he read <greek>emprosqen</greek>
<greek>tou</greek> <greek>Qeou</greek>
instead of <greek>emprosqen</greek> <greek>twn</greek>
<greek>aggelwn</greek> <greek>tou</greek>
<greek>Qeou</greek>. He seems to have left
out all the 28th verse, and expunged <greek>umwn</greek>
from verses 30 and 32, reading only <greek>o</greek>
<greek>pathr</greek>.
In ver. 38, instead of the words <greek>en</greek>
<greek>th</greek> <greek>deutera</greek>
<greek>Fugakh</greek>, <greek>kai</greek>
<greek>eh</greek> <greek>trith</greek>
<greek>Fulakh</greek>, he read <greek>en</greek>
<greek>th</greek> <greek>esperinh</greek>
<greek>Fulakh</greek>. In chap. xiii. he
omitted the first five verses, whilst in the 28th verse
of the same chapter, where we read, "When ye shall
see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets
in the kingdom of God, and ye yourselves thrust out,"
he read (by altering, adding, and transposing), "When
ye shall see all the just in the kingdom of God, and
you yourselves cast out, and bound without, there shall
be weeping and gnashing of teeth." He likewise
excluded all the remaining verses of this chapter.
All chap. xv. after the 10th verse, in which is contained
the parable of the prodigal son, he eliminated from
his Gospel. In xvii. 10 he left out all the words after
<greek>legete</greek>. He made many alterations
in the story of the ten lepers; he left out part of
ver. 12, all yet. 13, and altered vet. 14, reading
thus: "There met Him ten lepers; and He sent them
away, saying, Show yourselves to the priest;"
after which he inserted a clause from chap. iv. 27:
"There were many lepers in the days of Eliseus
the prophet, but none of them were cleansed, but Naaman
the Syrian." In chap. xviii. 19 he added the words
<greek>o</greek> <greek>pathr</greek>,
and in ver. 20 altered <greek>oidas</greek>,
thou knowest, into the first person. He entirely omitted
verses 31-33, in which our blessed Saviour declares
that the things foretold by the prophets concerning
His sufferings, and death, and resurrection, should
all be fulfilled. He expunged nineteen verses out of
chap. xix., from the end of yet. 27 to the beginning
of ver. 47. In chap. xx. he omitted ten verses, from
the end of ver. 8 to the end of ver. 18. He rejected
also verses 37 and 38, in which there is a reference
to Moses. Marcion also erased of chap. xxi. the first
eighteen verses, as well as verses 21 and 22, on account
of this clause, "that all things which are written
may be fulfilled;" xx. 16 was left out by him,
so also verses 35-37, 50, and 51 (and, adds Lardner,
conjecturally, not herein following his authority Epiphanius,
also vers. 38 and 49). In chap. xxiii. 2, after the
words "perverting the nation," Marcion added,
"and destroying the law and the prophets;"
and again, after "forbidding to give tribute unto
Caesar," he added, "and perverting women
and children." He also erased ver. 43. In chap.
xxiv. he omitted that part of the conference between
our Saviour and the two disciples going to Emmaus,
which related to the prediction of His sufferings,
and which is contained in verses 26 and 27. These
two verses he omitted, and changed the words at the
end of ver. 25, <greek>egaghsan</greek>
<greek>oi</greek> <greek>proQhtai</greek>,
into
<greek>egaghsa</greek> <greek>uhin</greek>.
Such are the alterations, according to Epiphanius,
which Marcion made in his Gospel from St. Luke. Tertullian
says (in the 4th chapter of the preceding Book) that
Marcion erased the passage which gives an account of
the parting of the raiment of our Saviour among the
soldiers. But the reason he assigns for the erasure--'respiciens
Psalmi prophetiam'--shows that in this, as well as
in the few other instances which we have already named,
where Tertullian has charged Marcion with so altering
passages, his memory deceived him into mistaking Matthew
for Luke, for the reference to the passage in the Psalm
is only given by St. Matthew xxvii. 35.
(5.) On an impartial review of these alterations,
some seem to be but slight; others might be nothing
but various readings; but others, again, are undoubtedly
designed perver-

425

sions. There were, however, passages enough left unaltered
and unexpunged by the Marcionites, to establish the
reality of the flesh and blood of Christ, and to prove
that the God of the Jews was the Father of Christ,
and of perfect goodness as well as justice. Tertullian,
indeed, observes (chap. xliii.) that "Marcion
purposely avoided erasing all the passages which made
against him, that he might with the greater confidence
deny having erased any at all, or at least that what
he had omitted was for very good reasons."
(6.) To show the unauthorized and unwarrantable
character of these alterations, omissions, additions,
and corruptions, the Catholic Christians asserted that
their copies of St. Luke's Gospel were more ancient
than Marcion's (so Tertullian in chap. iii. and iv.
of this Book iv.); and they maintained also the genuineness
and integrity of the unadulterated Gospel, in opposition
to that which had been curtailed and altered by him
(chap. v.).

ELUCIDATIONS.

I.

(Deadly Sins, cap. IX., p. 356.)

TO maintain a modern and wholly uncatholic system
of Penitence, the schoolmen invented a technical scheme
of sins mortal and sins venial, which must not be read
into the Fathers, who had no such technicalities in
mind. By "deadly sins" they meant all such
as St. John recognizes (I. John, v. 16, 17,) and none
other; that is to say sins of surprise and infirmity,
sins having in them no malice or wilful disobedience,
such as an impatient word, or a momentary neglect of
duty. Should a dying man commit a deliberate sin and
then expire, even after a life of love and obedience,
who could fail to recognize the fearful nature of such
an end? But, should his last word be one of infirmity
and weakness, censurable but not involving wilful disobedience,
surely we may consider it as provided for by the comfortable
words--"there is a sin not unto death." Yet
"all unrighteousness is sin," and the Fathers
held that all sin should be repented of and confessed
before God; because all sin when it is finished bringeth
forth death."
In St. Augustine's time, when moral theology became
systematized in the West, by his mighty genius and
influence, the following were recognized degrees of
guilt: (1.) Sins deserving excommunication. (2.) Sins
requiring to be confessed to the brother offended in
order to God's forgiveness, and (3.) sins covered by
God's gracious covenant, when daily confessed in the
Lord's Prayer, in public, or in private. And this classification
was professedly based on Holy Scripture. Thus: (1.)
on the text--"To deliver such an one unto Satan,
etc." (I. Cor. v. 4, 5). (2.) On the text--(Matt.
xviii. 15), "Confess your sins one to another,
brethren" (St. James v. 16), and (3.) on the text--(St.
Matt. vi. 12,) "Forgive us our trespasses as we
forgive them that trespass against us." This last
St. Augustine(1) regards as the "daily medication"
of our ordinary life, habitual penitence and faith
and the baptismal covenant being presupposed.
The modern Trent theology has vastly amplified the
scholastic teachings and refinements, and the elevation
of Liguori to the rank of a church-doctor has virtually
made the whole system de fide with the Latins. The
Easterns know nothing of this modern and uncatholic
teaching, and it is important that the student of the
Ante-Nicene Patrologia should be on his guard against
the novel meanings which the Trent theology imposes
upon orthodox (Nicene) language. The long ages during
which Eastern orthodoxy has been obscured by

426

the sufferings and consequent ignorance of the Greeks,
have indeed tainted their doctrinal and practical system,
but it still subsists in amazing contrast with Latin
impurity. See, on the" indulgences," of the
latter, the" Orthodox Theology of Macarius, Bishop
of Vinnitza," Tom. II. p. 541, Paris, 1860.
II.

(Reservation of Baptism, cap. xi., note,
p. 361.)

It is important, here, to observe the heretical origin
of a sinful superstition which becomes conspicuous
in the history of Constantine. If the church tolerated
it in his case, it was doubtless in view of this extraordinary
instance of one, who was a heathen still, at heart,
becoming a guardian and protector of the persecuted
Faithful. It is probable that he was regarded as a
Cyrus or a Nebuchadnezzar whom God had raised up to
protect and to deliver His people; who was to be honoured
and obeyed as "God's minister" (Rom. xiii.
4,) in so far, and for this purpose. The church was
scrupulous and he was superstitious; it would have
been difficult to discipline him and worse not to discipline
him. Tacitly, therefore, he was treated as a catechumen,
but was not formally admitted even to that class. He
permitted Heathenism, and while he did so, how could
he be received as a Christian? The Christian church
never became responsible for his life and character,
but strove to reform him and to prepare him for a true
confession of Christ at some "convenient season."
In this, there seems to have been a great fault somewhere,
chargeable perhaps to Eusebius or to some other Christian
counsellor; but, when could any one say--"the
emperor is sincere and humble and penitent and ought
now to be received into the church." It was a
political conversion, and as such was accepted, and
Constantine was a heathen till near his death. As to
his final penitence and acceptance--" Forbear
to judge." II. Kings, x. 29-31. Concerning his
baptism, see Eusebius, de Vita Const. iv. 61, see also,
Mosheim's elaborate and candid views of the whole subject:
First Three Centuries, Vol. II. 460-471.

III.

(Peter, cap. xiii. p. 365.)

The great Gallican, Launoy, doctor of the Sorbonne,
has proved that the Fathers understand the Rock to
be Christ, while, only rarely, and that rhetorically,
not dogmatically, St. Peter is called a stone or a
rock; a usage to which neither Luther nor Calvin could
object. Tertullian himself, when he speaks dogmatically,
is in accord with other Fathers, and gives no countenance
to the modern doctrine of Rome. See 'La Papaute, of
the Abbe Guettee, pp. 42-61. It is important, also,
to note that the primacy of St. Peter, more or less,
whatever it may have been in the mind of the Fathers,
was wholly personal, in their view.Of the fables which
make it hereditary and a purtenance of Rome they knew
nothing.

IV.

(Loans, cap. xvii. p. 372.)

The whole subject of usury, in what it consists,
etc., deserves to receive more attention than it does
in our times, when nominal Christians are steeped
in the sin of money-traffic to the injury of neighbours,
on a scale truly gigantic. God's word clearly rebukes
this sin. So does the Council of Nice.(1) Now by what
is the sin defined? Certainly by the spirit of the
Gospel; but, is it also, by the letter? A sophistical
casuistry which maintains the letter, and then sophisticates
and refines so as to explain it all away, is the product
of school divinity and of modern Jesuitry; but even
the great Bossuet is its apologist. (See his Traite
de l' Usure. opp. ix. p. 49, etc., ed. Paris, 1846.)
But for an exhaustive review of the whole matter, I
ask attention to Huet, Le Regne Social, etc. (Paris,
1853) pp. 334-345.

427

V.

(The Baptist, cap. xviii. p. 375.)

The interpretation of Tertullian, however, has the
all-important merit (which Bacon and Hooker recognize
as cardinal) of flowing from the Scripture without
squeezing. (1.) Our Lord sent the message to John as
a personal and tender assurance to him. (2.) The story
illustrates the decrease of which the Baptist had spoken
prophetically (St. John, iii. 30); and (3.) it sustains
the great principle that Christ alone is without sin,
this being the one fault recorded of the Baptist, otherwise
a singular instance of sinlessness. The B. Virgin's
fault (gently reproved by the Lord, St. John ii. 4.),
seems in like manner introduced on this principle of
exhibiting the only sinless One, in His Divine perfections
as without spot. So even Joseph and Moses (Ps. cvi.
33, and Gen. xlvii. 20.) are shewn "to be but
men." The policy of Joseph has indeed been extravagantly
censured.

VI.

(Harshness, cap. xix., note 6., p. 378. Also, cap. xxvi.
p. 393.)

Tertullian seems with reflect the early view of
the church as to our Lord's total abnegation of all
filial relations with the Virgin,when He gave to her
St. John, instead of Himself, on the Cross. For this
purpose He had made him the beloved disciple and doubtless
charged him with all the duties with which he was to
be clothed. Thus He fulfilled the figurative law of
His priesthood, as given by Moses, (Deut. xxx iii.
9,) and crucified himself, from the beginning, according
to his own Law (St. Luke, xiv. 26, 27,) which he identifies
with the Cross, here and also in St. Matthew, x. 37,
38. These then are the steps of His own holy example,
illustrating His own precept, for doubtless, as "the
Son of man," His filial love was superlative and
made the sacrifice the sharper: (1.) He taught Joseph
that He had no earthly father, when he said--"Wist
ye not that I must be in my Father's house," (St.
Luke iii. 49, Revised); but, having established this
fact, he then became "subject" to both his
parents, till His public ministry began. (2.) At this
time, He seems to have admonished His mother, that
He could not recognize her authority any longer, (St.
John, ii. 4,) having now entered upon His work as the
Son of God. (3.) Accordingly, He refused, thenceforth,
to know her save only as one of His redeemed, excepting
her in nothing from this common work for all the Human
Race, (St. Matt. xii. 48,) in the passage which Tertullian
so forcibly expounds. (4.) Finally, when St. Mary draws
near to the cross, apparently to claim the final recognition
of the previous understanding (St. John, ii. 4,) to
which the Lord had referred her at Cana--He fulfils
His last duty to her in giving her a son instead of
Himself, and thereafter (5) recognizes her no more;
not even in His messages after the Resurrection, nor
when He met her with other disciples. He rewards her,
instead, with the infinite love He bears to all His
saints, and with the brightest rewards which are bestowed
upon Faith. In this consists her superlative excellence
and her conspicuous glory among the Redeemed (St. Luke,
i. 47, 48,) in Christ's account.

VII.

(Children, cap. xxiii. p. 386.)

In this beautiful testimony of our author to the
sanctity of marriage, and the blessedness of its fruits,
I see his austere spirit reflecting the spirit of Christ
so tenderly and so faithfully, in the love of children,
that I am warmly drawn to him. I cannot give him up
to Montanism at this period of his life and labours.
Surely, he was as yet merely persuaded that the prophetic
charismata were not extinct, and that they had been
received by his

428

Phrygian friends, although he may still have regarded
them as prophesying subject to all the infirmities
which St. Paul attributes even to persons elevated
by spiritual gifts. (I. Cor. xiv.) Why not recognize
him in all his merits, until his open and senile lapse
is complete ?

VIII.

(Hades, cap. xxxiv. p. 406.)

Here again our author shews his unsettled view as
to Shoal or Hades, on which see Kaye, pp. 247-150.
Here he distinguishes between the Inferi and Abraham's
bosom; but (in B. iii. cap. 24.) he has already, more
aptly, regarded the Inferi, or Hades, as the common
receptacle of departed spirits, where a "great
gulf" indeed, separates between the two classes.
A caricature may sometimes illustrate characteristic
features more powerfully than a true portrait. The
French call the highest gallery in theatres, paradis;
and I have sometimes explained it by the fact that
the modern drama originated in the monkish Mysteries,
revived so profanely in our own day. To reconcile the
poor to a bad place they gave it the name of Paradise,
thus illustrating their Mediaeval conceptions; for
trickling down from Tertullian his vivid notions seem
to have suffused all Western theology on this subject.
Thus, then, one vast receptacle receives all the dead.
The pit, as we very appropriately call it in English,
answers to the place of lost spirits, where the rich
man was in torments. Above, are ranged the family of
Abraham reclining, as it were, in their father's bosom,
by turns. Far above, under skylights, (for the old
Mysteries were celebrated in the day-time) is the Paradise,
where the Martyrs see God, and are represented as "under
the altar" of heaven itself. Now, abandoning our
grotesque illustration, but using it for its topography,
let us conceive of our own globe, as having a world-wide
concavity such as they imagined, from literalizing
the under-world of Sheol. In its depths is the Phylace
(I. Pet. iii. 19,) of "spirits in prison."
In a higher region repose the blessed spirits in "Abraham's
bosom." Yet nearer to the ethereal vaults, are
the martyrs in Paradise, looking out into heavenly
worlds. The immensity of the scale does not interfere
with the vision of spirits, nor with such communications
as Abraham holds with his lost son in the history of
Dives and Lazarus. Here indeed Science comes to our
aid, for if the telephone permits such conversations
while we are in the flesh, we may at least imagine
that the subtile spirit can act in like manner, apart
from such contrivances. Now, so far as Tertullian is
consistent with him self, I think these explanations
may clarify his words and references. The Eastern Theology
is less inconsistent and bears the marks alike of Plato
and of Origen. But of this hereafter. Of a place, such
as the Mediaeval Purgatory, affirmed as de fide by
the Trent creed, the Fathers knew nothing at all. See
Vol. II. p. 490, also 522, this Series.

ADDITIONAL NOTE.

(Passage not easy to identify, p. 390, note 14.)

Easy enough, by the LXX. See Isaiah lxiii. 3. <greek>kai</greek>
<greek>tpn</greek> <greek>eqnqn</greek>
<greek>ouk</greek> <greek>estin</greek>
<greek>anhr</greek> <greek>met</greek>
<greek>emou</greek>. The first verse, referring
to Edom, leads our author to accentuate this point
of Gentile ignorance.

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